Grains of Sand
by Amber Penglass
Summary: Shepard wakes, only mostly not dead, too soon while in Cerberus clutches. She escapes, and is chased to the only place she can hide; Omega. No team, no supplies, no information, no armor, no funds. To survive, she makes a deal with a quarian salvage dealer, only to discover that same dealer has something in common with her; a certain turian vigilante acquaintance.
1. Chapter 1

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

 _There was pain, at first. A lot of it. As soon as she realized that's what it was, a mirthless sort of hysterical triumph followed- pain meant she was alive. Somehow._

 _Then the pain swallowed the triumph. Her eyes flew open, her chest burned as she inhaled sharply. The inhalation turned into gasps, then into wordless sounds of unspecific agonies._

 _Her eyes refused to focus, her ears were full of water, or cotton, or both, and every inch of her skin was being shredded and then reknit all at once. Above her, two faces loomed, male and female, angry and shouting, panicked. Over her. Over her waking._

 _She managed the strength to lift one arm, to plead or to strike she wasn't sure, but the sight of it arrested whatever half-formed intent she had. Raw flesh, peeks of muscle, glints of metal and the sheen of new, wet tissue._

With a jolt, Shepard woke. Her real surroundings, not those of the nightmare, assaulted her senses and hauled her firmly into the waking world. Hard metal pilot's seat, her numb ass, the glare of Omega's harsh red exterior lighting through the shuttle's open viewport, and the shrill shrieking of her comm system.

Without moving anything else, for a moment, Shepard closed her eyes again and inhaled slowly. Whatever was on the other end of that comm line, she told herself, she'd be mildly grateful that their interruption had prevented the full playout of that particular nightmare. That memory.

Then Shepard uncoiled from her uncomfortable perch on the hard-angled seat and hit the comm alert.

"Ticket 3458-beta, your berth is open."

The words were in garbled common, a heavy Tuchanka accent permeating the tones, but Shepard understood just fine and breathed a sigh. It was a sigh of neither relief nor aggravation, just an acknowledgment of the end of the day and half of waiting in line for one of the 'free' docking ports of Omega's underbelly to open up. Nothing was ever truly free, of course, especially when in the heart of what was arguably the Terminus' most corrupt cesspit, but it did not require any funds up front. Good, since she had none. Not a single goddamn credit.

Shepard hit the pre-set navigation command that would take her to the correct dock. She glanced to the co-pilot's seat, where her rucksack lay in a discouragingly limp. Two spare clips, a few day's worth of dehydrated rations, a medpack, two outdated stims, and a data recorder. All of it, except the stims, gleaned in the few spare moments she'd dare take while escaping...wherever she'd been.

Her green stare shifted from the sack to her arm. It wasn't raised, now, or skinless. She still tugged the cuff of her sleeve down, over the angry orange-red lines of scar tissue, illuminated faintly from beneath by the cybernetics. Her other hand went up to rub tiredly at her forehead, carefully avoiding letting her fingers go any higher than that. She'd never been vain, but the sight and feel of her bare scalp made her wince every time she was reminded of it. There wasn't even stubble.

When the shuttle was docked, she stood, stretched, and then unclipped a set of tools from her belt. Ignoring the ache in her bones and muscles, she got down and shimmied under the command console. In a few moments, she'd removed what she wanted, wires and cables and all, and had stowed the components in her rucksack. She replaced the access panel she'd removed; with luck, she'd be long gone and mired in the faceless crowds before her inevitable extortionists discovered the missing tech.

When the hatch went up and the ramp went down, Shepard gave the 'welcoming' party standing on the docks a wide grin.

"Thanks for the berth, boys," she said merrily, with cheer she did not feel. She took in their arrayed positions, their squared stances, the lazy proximity of their hands to their weapons. She kept her hands carefully clear of the M-3 at her right thigh. The Predator model was not her favorite, but hey, beggars and choosers and all that.

"Codes and signature," said the batarian at the head of the arch of extortionists. He held out a datapad, head tilted slightly to the side -she ignored the insult- a grin spreading his gnarly maw wider than she thought necessary. "For if there's an emergency. You know, in case we need to move it."

"Uh-huh," she said, not trying to pretend to be fooled. They knew, she knew, they knew she knew, time to get it over with and move on. She moved carefully, slowly forward, not advertising how she tracked all their movements with quick flicks of her eyes behind her eyelashes. She took the datapad, entered in the access codes to the shuttle's systems, and signed it away. Not that it had ever been hers in the first place. By the time an hour had gone, the Cerberus logo on the sides would be history, the craft would be gutted for parts more valuable as scrap resale, and the traceable hull would be chucked into a floating scrapyard around one of the asteroids to become a near-literal needle-in-a-haystack. In a way, they'd be doing her favor; now there was nothing for her pursuers to use to verify she'd ever arrived here.

A day out from the Cerberus base she'd awoken in and escaped from, her routes to any friendly territories had been thoroughly blocked by small fleets of ships bearing the black and orange emblem, or else mercenary groups known to work with the terrorist organization. Going around had not been an option, not on the shuttle's very finite fuel and even more finite supplies. There had even been a blockade around Omega, although a significantly smaller one, as if they'd predicted her reluctance to head somewhere so decidedly unhelpful. She'd been able to slip past them, coasting on fumes to get in line for this laughable deal of a docking agreement.

"Pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen," she said, handing back the datapad.

"Heh," the batarian sneered. "Need directions anywhere?"

She restrained the snort she felt building. Directions to a dark alleyway, or a friend's red sand den? Ha.

"Meeting a friend," she said. "Thanks."

"No problem." Then he was blatantly done with her, turning away and shouting orders to his companions.

Shepard had to work at not showing her reaction to being so summarily dismissed. She kept her hands still when they itched to reach up and finger the nonexistent N7 logo on her nonexistent hardsuit. She hadn't felt the need to prove she'd earned her stripes in a long, long time. She didn't like the feeling any more now than she had then. Walking away from the mercenaries, it was hard not to feel naked. Even with had she been fully suited up and armed to the teeth, she doubted she would have felt adequately prepared to enter the mire of Omega. She'd been here before, once, with half her platoon on a training exercise. For some strange reason, the half a dozen armored Alliance Marines, complete with rocket launchers, had been left alone.

She adopted the attitude of the other denizens she saw, that of alert disinterest. She kept her rucksack at her left side rather than slung onto her back, where it would be an easy target for pickpockets or a slash-and-grab. She kept her right arm and thigh clear for obvious reasons, letting the weapon be visible enough to be a deterrent, but her hand far enough from it to show she wasn't _looking_ for trouble.

Of course, trouble found her. She was hardly surprised. If the universe could, and had, throw a wrench like Saren into a simple recon of a farming colony, then she had hardly expected a stroll through Omega's underbelly to be uneventful. Thankfully, the first to decide to test the obvious newcomer were on the lower end of the intelligence scale. The trio of vorcha didn't even try to sneak up on her, simply stepping clear of the stack of empty crates that seemed to make up half of Omega's structural material.

"Give sack now, or die," one hissed.

"You really don't want to do this," she said, in her most convincing tone. Part menace, part patience, and all foreboding. Harder to do without the butt of her rocket launcher sticking up over her shoulder, or at least a decent shotgun, but she made do with a squared stance and a steady glare. The vorcha peeled back its lips to expose more of its needle-like teeth, and the other two made some sort of choking sound she recognized as their form of laughter. She suppressed a sigh. In the back of her mind, some cruel twist in her own neural pathways thought it would be funny to provide an echo of an old squadmate's sardonic tone, formed around some snarky comment on their opponent's chances of surviving the next few minutes.

She wished she were as confident as that echo of a voice. She was good, but as she was? One sidearm and limited ammo, hospital-esq slacks and long-sleeved thermal, certainly no hardsuit, no omnitool, no teammates…

"Have it your way," she sighed, dropping the sack and kicking it towards them. One vorcha preened with triumph, another snickered wetly, and the third -the speaker- crouched to grab for it. When his head was where she wanted it, Shepard drew her M-3 and let off a trio of rapid shots, right into the bent crown of its head. It fell, dead too quick to regenerate, and the other two sprang back while hissing and snarling. Shepard followed suit, springing towards the one slower to get into cover and still exposed. Her elbow caught it in the throat, a shock of pain rocketing up her arm. She grunted, but didn't retreat, following her elbow with a strike from her other hand. She felt the vorcha equivalent of a windpipe crumple, and while it choked and sputtered, she grabbed for its head and twisted viciously, first a full one-eighty one direction, then back the other way to snap both redundant spinal cords, preventing one from regenerating the other.

Shepard dived behind the crate the dead second vorcha had been aiming for, just as the third recovered its nerve and let off a pair of wild, ill-aimed shots. One ricocheted off the metal crate, the other missed her head, close enough she felt a line of fire burned across her scalp. She checked her gun, scowled, and then pressed against the crate to wait. With only one shot left, she'd have to make it count. Doubtful she'd be able to get close enough to this one like she had with the other to take him out sans any mass accelerated superheated metal shavings.

She held her breath, and waited.

Her patience was rewarded only a few moments later, and she thanked whoever was listening for vorcha stupidity and impatience. She heard him snort and scuffle out from behind his own cover, heard the scrape of claws on metal flooring, and still she waited. She shifted into position, silent as she could be, and when the vorcha's head poked over the top of her crate, she surged upwards and grabbed him around his neck, hauling him down with her own body weight. Her armed hand went up behind him, and she pressed the muzzle into the place between his shoulder blades where his spine was least protected, and released her sole shot. The vorcha went limp almost before he'd truly begun to struggle, she'd been that quick.

Shepard sank back down to the grimy floor, heart pounding. Every inch of her ached, as if she'd been beaten with mallets before getting into a brawl with a krogan. Whatever Cerberus had been doing to her while she'd been unconscious, she wasn't done healing from it.

She couldn't afford to rest, not here. With a well-honed force of will, she stood and spent a few moments going through the possessions of the three new corpses before she went to collect her rucksack. She checked to make sure nothing inside was damaged, then added two more thermal clips to her collection before chucking the spent one and slapping a fresh one home. Then she shouldered her pack and moved on. Into her pocket went her other bit of loot; a credit chit, loaded with enough for a few meals and hopefully some information.

* * *

Of all the cheap foods Shepard expected to be able to splurge on, fish had not been among the items considered. Flavorless, oily, unseasoned fish, true, but still- _fish_. On an asteroid colony turned pirate's den of a space station.

The human who owned and operated the small stand in Omega's market district kept a close eye on the self-contained vat of water behind him. It was ingenious, really. All he'd had to do was acquire a few viable freeze dried eggs, hatch them, breed them, and he had a self-replenishing supply of protein, so long as he kept the water at the right levels of oxygen and pH and kept them fed. At some point, he must have figured out that with a little expansion, he could turn his own private guarantee of survival into a profitable venture, and that was what he had done.

Shepard doubted he'd remain on the lower levels for long, not someone as resourceful as him, but for the meantime she was happy to hand over the comparatively few credits for a hot meal made from something other than reconstituted nutrient pastes and powders.

"Any idea where I can find someone to buy some things?" She asked, handing back the plate and utensils she'd been given.

The fish-seller put the items in a the sanitizer without hardly looking, then gestured vaguely towards the rear of the market labyrinth.

"Harrot," he said. "Or Kenn." He turned away without another word to crack open the vat, spear a wriggling fish inside, and haul it out to be slapped on the butchering board.

"Thanks," she said anyway, and moved away into the throng of market-goers.

Her plan was a simple one. Sell the parts she'd cannibalized from the shuttle, buy passage off Omega to somewhere in Council-friendly space, and present herself to the first Alliance headquarters she could find and let them deal with the red tape of an MIA Marine turning up out of nowhere.

Of course, because it was her, her simple plan turned out to be not so simple the moment she dumped her parts on Harrot's counter. She knew elcor were slow, but after a long moment even she could tell he was stalling as he worked at examining the pieces.

"If there's a problem, I can go somewhere else," Shepard told the shopkeeper.

"Statement: There is no problem."

Then silence. Shepard drummed her fingers on the counter, debating on her next move. Before she had the chance to decide, a presence to her right made her glance out of the corner of her eye. She stiffened, her fingers halting their staccato. The batarian beside her grinned.

"Hello again, friend," he said. She nodded in acknowledgment of the greeting, but said nothing. He looked to the shopkeeper. "Harrot, I hear you found some things for me? That was quick, even for you."

"Offer: Here are the stolen goods, Karoon," said the elcor. "Clarification: I trust this settles our debt?"

"For awhile," said Karoon. He looked back to Shepard. "Did you think we wouldn't check the comm array for missing components? I sent out word to all the shops to be on the lookout for these very items."

"These parts were already separated from the shuttle before I signed it over to you," she told him calmly. "Check the shuttle's maintenance records, and compare them to the timestamp on the forfeiture I signed."

The batarian frowned. Timestamps were easy to forge, of course. That wasn't what had him frowning; it was her defiance, such as it was. She doubted he was used to anyone not simply skulking away.

"Look, let's make this simple," Shepard said. "How about I sell them to you, instead? At a loss, of course." She only need a fraction of what the parts were worth to get a ticket off this rock, anyway. "You still resell them for a profit, and I don't have to wash the filth off my fingers after I gouge out a set of your eyes for trying to cheat me twice in one day."

Karoon laughed. Then he made an offer, one of a non-monetary denomination.

Shepard punched him in the jaw.

In the end, she got away with all but one of the smaller parts that had been grabbed for by an unseen opportunist in the brawl following Shepard's initial blow. Her spare medpac had gone missing, and one of the stims had broken, but she got away with the important things.

She found an alcove -made of more crates- to duck into and wait out the chaos. She spent the time fuming, calculating how much time she would now lose to waiting out a reasonable period before she could try selling the parts again. If he really had sent word to every salvage dealer, then trying another shop would just be inviting another unwanted encounter.

Like a criminal waiting for the heat on a stolen item to cool before fencing, she'd have to bide her time. She did a few quick calculations and decided, if she was careful, she could make it on the funds she already had. She could, of course, use them to purchase a comm line to a nearby Alliance outpost, and have them pick her up, but then she'd have to pray that Cerberus wasn't watching all such communications and got to her first.

Shepard wasn't much for prayer.

After a few hours of deliberate aimless wandering to throw off any tails, Shepard found a run-down hostel and paid for a closet for the night. She called it that, rather than a room, because that was what it was. A closet. Had always been a closet. But, it had a door that locked, and -more importantly- an access port for the local news network, or what passed for a news network at any rate. If the closet had been cheap, then the fee to have that access port turned on had been outrageous.

Shepard deposited both herself and her sack on the cot that took up most of the small space, and pulled the orange screen on its swivel-arm over to her. She didn't let herself think of sleep. If she had to wait on acquiring funds and a way off Omega, then she'd move on to the next thing she needed; information.

The very first bit of information was the biggest, and it wasn't what she had expected. The date.

She blinked at the digits. Checked that the calendar was set right. Blinked again.

Then she cursed, and braced herself for the next thing she looked up; herself. Most people wouldn't be able to search their own name on any local network on any planet, colony, or station and expect a result unless they were a politician, entertainer, or some other famous archetype. Most people also weren't her.

The results of her search came back, and Shepard sighed. KIA was a hell of lot more paperwork and red tape than MIA. Someone in the Alliance was going to _hate_ her when she showed back up again, very much alive. It wasn't like she could blame them for the upgrade -downgrade?- in status. It had been almost two years, after all.

She kept searching, in part to keep her thoughts moving. Shepard had a mind that had contemplated things that most humans would never dream of, but even she didn't think pondering her own supposed death and missing two years of her life would be an easy ride. The names of her shipmates mostly came back with no more information that what she either knew already or could have guessed for herself.

Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, resistant to the limelight of being the Savior of the Citadel's pilot, grounded after Alchera pending an investigation before he'd simply quit the Alliance. Pressley, deceased in the same attack that had supposedly killed her. Tali'zorah Nar Rayya, returned to the Fleet following a near-death adventure with a bacteria contracted through a suit breach, gained during the same attack that had killed Pressley. Garrus Vakarian, last heard to be resuming duties at C-Sec amid rumors of an application to the Spectres. Urdnot Wrex, arrested for drunk and disorderly on the Citadel, almost trespassed for life (she sensed Garrus' intervention there), then disappeared, reportedly to Tuchanka. Liara T'soni, gone home to Thessia to tend to her deceased mother's estates.

Of anyone else, there was hardly any information at all, if Shepard found their names to begin with. She shied away from any mention of her own name, though it was hard to filter out the information completely. By the time she was done, she was aware of a scholarship fund to the Alliance Academy in her name, founded by Anderson, a petition by the New Church of the Uni-Racial Graces to canonize her as a saint, and the record-breaking auction of her personal collection of antique shot glasses.

The last one made her wince. She'd been collecting those since she'd been a kid. Well, at least the lot of them had been kept together.

Shepard shut down the glowing orange screen, and pushed it away. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, head hanging low between her shoulders. She inhaled deeply, slowly, as she cracked her fingers one by one.

Two years.

Well.

Damn.

* * *

She stayed two nights in the hostel, not even leaving the closet. It should have driven her stir-crazy, but aside from the paranoia that came from listening at doors, it actually wasn't that bad. Mostly, she knew, because she needed the rest. The aches and pains in her joints and in her muscles didn't improve, but fully rested she was better able to deal with it.

On the third day, Shepard returned to the last place she'd seen the fish-seller. After living in a dark box surviving on dehydrated rations, one of those oily, flavorless fried fishes sounded divine.

She found what was left of his stand, cold and scorched. The vat in the back was broken open, the floor still damp. A few rotting fish added to the odor of the stale air. More than a few streaks of blood darkened the ground. They were thick and numerous enough that she doubted the man was still alive. Shepard clenched a fist, staring at those streaks and those dead fish, then moved on. There was nothing she could do, now.

She found the other salvage seller the fish-monger had recommended, feeling somehow obligated to visit him first. She avoided Harrot's, for obvious reasons, but the lanky quarian she found after following directions to 'Kenn's Salvage' was a surprise in and of itself. There were only two reasons a quarian would spend enough time away from the Fleet to set up their own business, and he didn't seem old enough to be an outcast. Pilgrimage, however, seemed equally unlikely- most were smart enough to head to places of relative safety, or a remote colony of some kind where crime was kept low by simple virtue of a low population count. Not Omega.

"I can swing six-fifty for the lot," the quarian told her, failing at sounding casual. She suppressed her amusement.

"They're worth more than triple that," she said. In truth, closer to quadruple, but a glance around at Kenn's open-air shop told her that the parts she'd placed on his counter equalled more than half of the rest of his inventory combined in terms of value.

The youth lifted his shoulders in a human shrug, hands raised placatingly. "I've got to make a profit," he replied.

"Twelve-hundred," she said. Enough for passage and then a bit, giving them both room to negotiate down.

Kenn shook his head. "Six-fifty," he repeated.

Shepard drummed her fingers on the counter. Harmless as the kid seemed, if his ineptitude at the concept of haggling kept her from getting off this rock…

As if sensing her frustration, Kenn shifted from foot to foot before saying, "Look, I do want them, and I'd give you more if I could, but business hasn't been great and just a few days ago one of the big extortion gangs sent out a memo looking for parts just like these. I won't even be able to put them out for sale for weeks, and I've been trying to save up to get off Omega and continue my pilgrimage."

That speech, in and of itself, told Shepard she was in trouble. The kid was just that, a kid, and in over his head. The fact that he'd survived this long was impressive, really. Shepard thought of the blood stains at the fish-seller's stand.

Quarians had red blood, too.

Shepard sighed.

This. This right here was how she got into trouble. This was going to bite her in the ass, she just knew it. Of course, that didn't stop her.

"I think I can help you," she said. "Help both of us, actually."

With a likely well-earned sense of wariness, Kenn said, "I'm listening."

"Your problems happen to be pretty much my problems," Shepard told him. "I need to get off Omega as soon as possible. Given how hard it must be to get ahold of dextro suit-compatible nutrient packs, I imagine you also need to get somewhere else, sooner rather than later."

"I've had nothing but _nala_ flavor for weeks," Kenn lamented, shoulders slumping. "Do you have any idea what _nala_ tastes like? Feet. It tastes like feet. Elcor feet."

Shepard snorted. "Ever try dehydrated potatoes? I feel your pain." Potatoes were one of the few levo-protein foods typically safe for dextro races to ingest, they simply provided no nutrition of any sort.

"How about I _give_ you these parts," Shepard went on, noting Kenn's sudden stillness. "And in exchange you let me help you run this shop. I stay here, eat here, we pool our resources and watch each other's backs. Then, in a few weeks when it's safe, we sell the parts and escape this cesspit together, and go our separate ways."

The quarian hesitated visibly. She didn't blame him; if she was telling the truth, it was a great deal for both of them. If not, if she worked for a competitor, or one of the merc gangs, he was setting himself up to lose everything.

Theoretically, she was risking the same. The difference was, if he double-crossed her, she could take him out, and he knew it. The reverse could not be said.

Just as Shepard was about to tell him to take his time, she'd be back later, the quarian stuck out a three-fingered hand. Smiling at the human gesture, Shepard took it.

* * *

When your life depends on something, regularly, you get good at it. Shepard's life, and the lives of others, had often depended on her ability to judge a threat and how she would measure against it. Such a judgment, involving Kenn, had fueled her offer, believing that barring an unforeseen surprise he'd be no match for her, even as relatively unarmed as she was.

When Kenn showed her to the small living quarters tucked behind his small shop, she was forced to reevaluate her earlier assessment of the youth. Situated on high set shelves to either side of the door, a pair of three-legged automated turrets peered at her through polished lenses. There was a high-pitched whine that made her step back. Kenn brought up his omnitool, entered a command, and the turrets lost interest in her, the whine dying down.

Maybe it wasn't such a surprise the kid was still alive.

"I've set them to recognize you as friendly," he said. "For today. I'll have to reset it every day, so don't try to come back here without me."

Shepard grinned at him. He could very easily set them to recognize her permanently; he was letting her know he didn't fully trust her, yet. She was liking Kenn more and more.

"Fair enough," she acknowledged, then set to examining the small apartment, such as it was. Not much more than a single room with an alcove for cooking machinery, and that looked hardly used. Not surprising, given the race of its sole occupant. The bed that was pushed into the far corner was rumpled, but the blankets had been left in place. Again, not surprising; Kenn's suit would regulate his temperature better than any blankets, which would just get tangled with his suit at any rate.

"You can have the couch, and that locker is empty," Kenn told her, gesturing to where the long black piece of furniture was pushed against the wall opposite the bed. On the floor next to it, a dented footlocker gaped open. When she tried it, the biosignature lock on it seemed to still work. She stowed her rucksack, locked it, then looked back at Kenn expectantly. He gestured for her to follow him back out to the shop, which she did.

They spent the rest of the day with her new coworker and room-mate showing her how he ran his shop, where things were, and how his kiosk program worked. Shepard was briefly amused that now, at her age, at this point in her life, she essentially had procured what amounted to a retail job. If Kenn wondered at her sudden mirth, he didn't ask about it.

"So what do you do in between customers?" She asked. She glanced, discreetly, to where an unusually tall turian in full armor seemed to be heading for their shop, carrying an overflowing crate. Kenn didn't seem to notice. She suppressed a sigh- the kid's situational awareness needed work, turrets or no turrets.

"Repair stuff, mostly," he answered, gesturing to a work bench behind the counter. "That's actually where most of my money comes from, when Harrot isn't undercutting me. People bring me things to fix, or-"

"Or to make disappear," interrupted a new voice in a flanging drawl. The armored turian she'd been keeping tabs on, out of the corner of her eye, set his burden on the counter, and for the first time she got a good look at him.

Shepard froze.

"Archangel!" Kenn greeted excitedly, turning and taking note of the newcomer at last. "Keelah, what happened to _you_?"

Shepard wanted to know the same. The turian's left mandible was bandaged and there was bruising around his neck, some swelling making one fringe spine stand up awkwardly. He flicked his good mandible in the turian equivalent of a wry grin.

"Heard humans are into something called autoerotic asphyxiation, thought I'd give it a try," he answered flippantly.

Kenn snorted. "Meaning you let a human merc get his hands on you, literally."

"I didn't _let_ him, exactly. He was just…very insistent." Then, the turian finally looked at her. Shepard felt her expectations soar...and plummet.

He blinked ice blue eyes at her, but other than that…

Nothing.

Garrus Vakarian was on Omega.

Garrus Vakarian was tangling with mercs.

Garrus Vakarian...didn't recognize Shepard.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

He really, genuinely, did not recognize her.

She shouldn't have been surprised, she told herself. She couldn't expect him to be able to tell every human from one another when even she wasn't very good at telling turians apart, only recognizing Garrus despite his facial injuries due to long months spent cloistered together on a relatively small frigate. Not to mention the hours crammed inside a Mako on drop missions…

Besides which, she hardly recognized herself. Could she really blame him for not pairing the dirty, bald, scarred, plainclothes Omega waif in front of him to the cleancut, redhaired, armored Commander he'd known? She doubted any of her old crewmates would recognize her at a glance, either.

The next logical step, then, was to _tell_ him who she was. Logical.

Garrus -Archangel, Kenn was calling him- was pulling out the contents of the crate, scorched and blood-splattered rifles and SMGs, mostly. She watched the weapons being laid out, and said nothing.

"The usual, then?" Kenn asked, looking over the weapons casually.

"Disassemble, file down any serials, and redistribute," Garrus said, nodding.

"You got it, Archangel. Anything you and your team need? I got an old 34-Spiral interface module I thought Erash might like to see..."

"Nothing for the time being, thanks. We liberated a shipment of unmarked ammo and some stims at the same time we, ah, reallocated these." He gestured to the crate. "The Blood Pack should be quiet for awhile, without any ammo to make noise with."

Kenn laughed, but Shepard frowned. Blood Pack? 'Liberated shipments?' What was Garrus getting himself into?

As if sensing her thinking his name, Garrus looked up, past Kenn, and at her. This time, instead of his gaze being that of someone simply noting the location of someone close enough to pose a threat, he actually _looked_ at her. She stiffened.

"I thought you were trying to get off Omega, Kenn?" Garrus said. "Didn't think you could afford a shop assistant."

"Oh, uh…" Kenn fumbled, looking back at her. "She, uh, well, I'm not paying her. She's just going to take over the shop when I'm finally gone. Didn't want to leave you without a contact, Archangel."

"Hm, appreciate the thought," Garrus answered, though his tone was carefully reserved. His expression had turned contemplative.

"Which one are you supposed to be?" She asked suddenly. The strain of the moment did something odd to her voice, contorting it.

Garrus blinked at her, and she clarified, "Kenn calls you Archangel. Which one? Michael? Raphael? Gabriel?"

Both of his mandibles flared wide in an open grin, and he chuckled. "Archangel's just a name the locals picked out, and it stuck. I'm not too familiar with human mythology, myself."

"Not mythology to everyone," she said, thinking of Ashley.

Garrus raised his hands placatingly. "No offense meant," he offered.

"None taken," she replied. She hadn't moved a muscle, and the strain in the air was beginning to thicken. She made herself step forward, made herself wrap her arms around the crate, made herself turn and walk to another workbench toward the rear of the shop. Made herself say, "I'll get to work on these, Kenn."

She watched, out of the corner of her eye, and only half listened as Archangel inquired as to Kenn's doings, if anyone was bothering him, Harrot's ongoing harassment, carefully skirting the topic of his odd new shop assistant. They eventually parted ways, Kenn promising no one would ever find where the weapon components had come from. She watched Garrus' blue, dented, well cared for armor disappear into the Omega labyrinth, wondering why she hadn't told him who she was.

"I, uh, sort of gave you a name," Kenn said, coming to stand at her elbow as she worked to pry apart the grip of a filthy Carnifex. "When he asked what yours was. If I had told him I'd hired you without knowing it, he probably would have, er, looked into things...and I didn't think you'd want that."

"I guess I didn't ever give you one, did I?" She said mildly, grunting as the grip came apart, a jagged edge of metal scoring the back of her hand. She cursed, shaking the blood off. "What did you name me?"

"Red," he said with a shrug. "First thing that came to mind." Judging by the angle of his faceplate, he was staring at the line of welling blood on her hand. "It...seemed to fit."

"Works for me," she said. It was nonspecific, had nothing to do with her, nothing to point anyone looking for Shepard to Kenn's Salvage. She wiped her hand on her trousers when it finally stopped oozing, then got back to work.

Why hadn't she told him who she was?

* * *

For the first time since her escape, Shepard didn't dream when she slept that night, exhausted from a day of actually moving and working, not being cramped in a shuttle or a closet. She woke not long before Kenn, stretched out on the couch and staring up at the stained ceiling, the blanket from the bed her only bedding. She'd gone to bed fully dressed, shoes and all. She'd even left her M-3 holstered on her thigh, waking at intervals through the night to listen for...anything, really. Kenn waking and deciding he'd rather kill her and keep the parts without any sort of sharing to detriment his side of the deal. The crackle of Cerberus radios at the door, or Karoon knocking to reclaim what he considered his.

When Kenn finally roused, groaning and moaning and making all the noises of a bona fide anti-morning person, Shepard was already sitting up in the dark, waiting. He jumped when he saw her, as if he'd forgotten all about her. Likely, he had.

"Where's the best place for me to stock up on human supplies?" She asked when they emerged into the shop, pushing the carts loaded with the for-sale salvage. Nothing was left out overnight, of course; it was all brought in at the close of business. "Don't care about flavor or anything, just straight fuel to stay alive until we can get out of here."

"There's a little place in the Tuhi District," he told her, pushing his cart into place and locking the wheels. When parked, it just looked like a set of shelves once he folded the handles aside. She did the same with hers while he gave her directions.

"Be back in a few hours," he told her, attempting to sound stern and authoritative. She gave him a jaunty salute, grinning despite all else, and made her way out of the Market District, following sporadic signs that led her to Tuhi. The signs of dilapidation faded, somewhat, the further she went. The Tuhi District boasted mildly nicer shops, cleaner streets, and fewer bloodshot sidelong glances. She found the small store Kenn had described and ducked inside. Better area of Omega or not, it was still not a place to linger on the street.

The interior of the shop reminded of her a handful of corner stores that had supplied the malt beer, jerky, fruity wine, potato chips and frozen pizza staples of her youth on Earth. Most of the shelves held at least a few items, though a few along the floor were bare completely. Anything of true value, alcohol, stims, smokeables, were all kept behind the counter that was manned by an asari in rough working clothes. She eyed Shepard as she browsed the shelves, wincing at prices until she came to a plain, black-letter stamped crate near the counter.

Alliance rations. Bland, gooey, constipation-inducing, high-calorie rations. Well, she had told Kenn she was just looking for fuel…

"How much for the crate?" She asked, jerking her head towards it. The asari named a price, Shepard blinked, then amended, "How much for half the crate?"

The haggling began, with as much fervor as Shepard's haggling with Kenn the day before had lacked. They settled on a reasonable price, which still took a bigger chunk out of Shepard's funds than she liked, and the asari rang up the purchase. Shepard eyed a shelf behind the counter, one bearing a box of stims next to a bottle of dark brown liquid. She swallowed a regretful sigh, and promised herself a cask of her favorite aged whiskey when she finally got back to civilization.

The whir of hydraulics behind her made Shepard turn slightly to see a young asari, the equivalent of a human teen, enter the store. Shepard saw the shopkeeper's face darken at the sight of the girl, who had to be her daughter, judging by their near-identical streaks of pale blue framing their faces.

"Jaella!" The woman barked. "Where have you been?"

"Out," the teen replied, and Shepard carefully kept her face neutral. Some things, it seemed, transcended the racial boundaries. Teen snark was apparently one of them.

"Thank you for clarifying," the mother snapped. "Out _where?_ "

"Outside the store."

The asari' mother's eyebrow twitched. Shepard hastily scooped up two of the four boxes inside the crate, thanked the shopkeeper -who didn't acknowledge the thanks at all- and made her way out of the store just in time to avoid a full out family brawl.

Shepard kept a wary eye out as she made her way back to Kenn's. A lone human, armed with only a sole pistol on her thigh, carrying newly purchased goods was about equivalent to a neon sign saying ' _free stuff'_ hanging around her neck. She managed to juggle the not-small boxes to one arm in order to keep her right hand free and near her thigh.

"I wouldn't go that way," a voice said from a shadow near her left. She pivoted, keeping an eye on a bay of crates -those things were everywhere- nearby that would provide cover. She peered into the darkened alley from which the voice had emerged. She picked out the faint silhouette of an armored turian, male by the fringe and voice, and adjusted her position to see him better.

"Care to clarify?" She asked, shifting her weight and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. If he had markings, she couldn't see them.

"Vorcha horde," was all he said.

"Horde?" She echoed, eyebrow raised.

He gave an approximation of a shrug and said, "For lack of a better term. They're going to try to rush their way into Afterlife."

She heard the click and hiss of an ammo clip being checked, and grinned wryly.

"And you're, what, Omega's neighborhood watch?"

He flicked his left mandible in a turian grin, the metallic sheen to the bony appendage making it glint briefly in the faint light of the street.

"Something like that," he replied. "In any case, like I said- I wouldn't go that way."

"Thanks for the warning," she said with a nod, and turned to find another route.

Retracing her steps brought her back to the asari mother's corner store, and despite herself she found her ears perking to listen for sounds of matricide. Those two had been on the verge of a galactic-level throwdown, the likes of which Shepard had hardly seen since her own familial confrontations.

Yet...silence.

Shepard frowned, eyeballing the store as she passed it. They must have taken their 'discussion' to the back, or perhaps the asari 'teen' had opted for the silent treatment.

Shepard stopped walking. Something about the store felt...wrong. She tapped her foot, looking up and down the street. Nothing and no one, though there had been no one around when she'd gone in earlier, either.

Now, why did that strike her as odd? Most of Omega had an apocalyptic, almost deserted feel even when full of people. This was the first street she'd noticed was actually deserted. Why?

"Oh, hell," she mumbled, and kept walking, shrugging as if dismissing whatever had made her stop and stare in the first place. She'd bet that self-promised cask of whiskey that she was being watched.

She rounded a street corner further on, then once out of sight she doubled back. She'd hardly gone a hundred meters before she heard a sharp, pained cry followed by the high-pitched rapport of a mediocre silencer.

She really needed to stop doing this.

Shepard started running, slipping into the way of moving that made the least amount of noise and was normally useless to employ when wearing full gear. It wasn't useless now; on near-silent feet she darted between two buildings flanking the corner store and sidled up to a low, darkened window. She hugged the wall and paused, breathing through her nose, silently, listening for any signs she'd been heard or spotted.

Nothing. Good.

Carefully, she stowed the two boxes she'd been juggling behind another bay of crates. She rose up and peered through the grime-smeared window and into what she guessed was the store's back storage room. She could barely make out the shadowed forms of the two asari women kneeling on the ground, another pair of darker forms looming over them with weapons drawn.

Shepard ducked back down, frowning. Not a simple grab-and-run, not for what little she'd seen in the store and not with well-armored batarians. Mercs, she'd bet, not some small time thug looking to score a few bottles of alcohol and some credits from the store kiosk. It could be anything from a 'protection' gang extracting its 'dues,' or a move to force a deed transfer, or any other number of illicit, well-funded schemes. In the end, it didn't much matter, their end would be the same.

She would have to be careful, though, that she was not seen, or that anyone who did see her didn't get away to bring trouble down on Kenn.

Quickly, she examined what she could from her hiding place. While it had the advantage of keeping her out of sight of her targets, it also meant she was limited on what she could scope out.

The window wasn't one that opened, unsurprisingly. It was mostly blackened out, so the visibility it afforded her wasn't much beyond her initial assessment of _good guys on knees, bad guys waving guns_.

She'd have to get inside.

She drummed her fingers, silently, on her thigh. This was going to be...interesting, was the word she settled on.

She gathered up the boxes of rations, and slunk back around to the front of the store. What she'd give for her omnitool, or any sort of halfway decent life-sign radar. She wasn't used to operating this blind, this ill-equipped, this alone.

It was actually mildly exhilarating.

She reached the front door, shuffled the boxes to her left arm to free up her right, loosened her pistol in its holster, and burst in with the angriest, most obnoxious expression she could muster.

"Hey!" She shouted. "These boxes are only half full! I don't appreciate being cheated!"

By some stroke of luck -or stupidity, as it were- there was no one in the store itself. No look out, no guard, no one. The heavy silence radiating from the back room was as much a giveaway as a shout would have been. Clearly, whatever was going on was something they wanted to keep quiet, otherwise…

A flash of red, the barest glint off of a scope or guiding laser, was her only warning. She dived to the side, rolling behind one of the steel shelving units just as the shot zipped past where her shoulder had been a moment before. She cursed and drew her pistol, dropping the rations without a thought. No silencer, shitty or otherwise, on this gun; the shot had filled the air with a crack like thunder and the new, gloriously violent hole that had been made in the wall by the door gave her an idea where the shot had come the counter, it looked like.

"Puck! What's going on?" She heard someone shout from the back room.

"Just a disgruntled customer, Bavin," replied whoever was behind the counter. "I'm takin' care of it." She heard the sound of a spent heat sink being ejected, and a new one going in. A single-shot rifle? Or just the last shot?

One way to find out, she thought. She reached out next to her and grabbed a box from one of the lower shelves, then lobbed it out in the open. She heard a muffled curse, and another shot rang out- definitely a rifle, one that was in serious need of maintenance, by the sound of it.

She waited a moment, and when she heard the sound of yet another sink being ejected and replaced, she grinned. It _was_ a one-shot rifle, probably one of the old models retrofitted for the new heat sinks. She could hear muttering, now, sounding rapid and almost feverish. She'd bet credits the merc was high on stims, at least. Possibly hallex or videlicet.

From the back room, the sounds of pleading, flesh striking flesh, reminded Shepard she was here for a reason. She grabbed another box, tossed it, and the moment she heard the merc fire she dived out of cover, aiming the opposite direction she'd tossed the box. She charged the counter, planting one hand on its surface and hoisting herself up and over, sliding across it to land heavily on the other side. She was met by the sight of a skeletal youth with blown-out pupils in second-rate armor painted in sloppy Blue Suns colors. She took in these details in the scant half a second it took her to lash out, knocking the rifle -a _Naginata_? Really?- out of his grip while he'd been in the middle of ejecting the sink. Her other hand drew back, and she pile-drived it into his nose.

The kid fell back, spitting and sputtering around the gush of blood that filled his mouth, his broken nose making wet sucking noises when he tried to cry out. He looked up at her, his eyes more pupil than iris, his breathing coming in short, shallow, panicking gasps. She opened her mouth to demand silence -merc or not, the kid couldn't be more than sixteen, and hell if she was going to kill someone who was the same age she'd been when...well. If she had a choice, she just wouldn't.

Something on her face must have convinced him to remove himself from the altercation, since his eyes promptly rolled up and he fell back, completely limp. Playing dead, she thought with a snort.

Shepard relieved the supposedly unconscious merc recruit of his rifle and sidearm. Then, keeping him in sight lest he decided to rejoin the fray, Shepard sidled up to the door leading to the back room. It was partly open- why had no one come out to see what was going on? Had they really thought the skinny, trembling, riding-high new recruit _that_ capable that they didn't bother checking on the noise and the repeated shots?

Apprehensive, Shepard listened.

Nothing.

No, wait...a soft sob. A soothing hushing.

"Hello?" Shepard ventured. "You guys okay back there?"

"Y-yes," came a shaky reply. "They're dead."

Shepard frowned. Dead? How? She thought the two forms she'd seen through the window had been male, and this voice was female, so either there was a third merc trying to lure her in, or one of them had made one of the hostages speak.

"Come on out, then," Shepard called back, trying to sound casually relieved. She retreated back to the other side of the counter, ready to duck into cover should anything other than the two asari appear.

To Shepard's mild surprise, the shopkeeper and her daughter shuffled out with wide, terrified eyes, without guns to their backs. The younger of the two looked more shell-shocked than her mother, who likely had experienced such an event at least once or twice in her life prior to this. Even on Omega, the ' _that horrible thing will never happen to me_ ' mindset was all too possible. For a time.

"I'd suggest getting clear of this place for awhile," Shepard advised softly. The shopkeeper nodded, wrapping an arm around her daughter and pulling her out of the shop. There was no thanks, no acknowledgment. Shepard hadn't really expected any, but… She sighed.

Making her way to the other side of the counter once more, walking around instead of sliding over, she nudged the 'unconscious' kid with her boot.

"Allright," she said. "You can get up now. Promise me you'll leave these people alone, and I'll pretend to not see you scamper out of here like a little girl."

The kid didn't move. Shepard shook her head and moved past him and into the back room.

She almost wasn't surprised to see the bodies of the two mercs, sprawled out almost casually. The blue and white of their uniform hardsuits were scuffed and badly maintained, but their biggest blemishes were the neat red circles of gore-splattered precision that marred both helmets. A small hole, high in the dirty window, told her where their demises had come from. Shepard adjusted the strap of the Naginata she had slung across her back, eyeing that hole. Two kills, one bullet. No collateral damage. Impressive.

Shepard went back out to the store, and sighed at the kid still playing possum. She peered down at him, taking a closer look than she had before. Surrounding his prone form was the spent remains of the lone box of stims she'd seen on the shelf earlier, the one that had sat next to that bottle of whiskey she'd coveted. She blinked at the number of empty injectors.

Already knowing what she'd find, Shepard crouched down and reached out to press her fingers against his throat.

Nothing.

The kid's system, already pressed to its limits by the overdose, then pushed over the edge by the adrenaline and the brief firefight, had had a damn _heart attack_.

Shepard didn't even have the energy to curse. She just let her fingers drop, hanging her head and taking a deep breath.

Damn.

 _Damn it_.

All she took when she left the store were the two pilfered weapons and the boxes of rations she'd paid for.

And that bottle of whiskey. She figured the lives of its former owner was compensation enough.

* * *

 _This chapter's fic rec; I don't do this often, despite meaning to, but please please please check out a fic on my fav list, **New Game** by _ alden _ **prime**. Just go. Trust me. _

_Also, bear with me on Garrus' squad; I have the names, know the hacker was_ batarian _, Butler had a wife, and that's about it (aside from Sidonis, of course). I've been trying to glean more info, but there's surprisingly little. I'm going to be giving it my best guess with matching names to species and gender, feel free to pitch in if any of you have an opinion, I'm completely open on this, and nothing's been written that can't be changed easily._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

Word got around.

Three days ago, Archangel had killed three mercs with one bullet.

 _Not sure the third should count,_ Shepard thought to herself. _He died of a heart attack_.

Not that she could tell anyone how she knew that. Kenn had his suspicions, she thought. Afterall, he'd known she'd been at the store in question in the same general timeframe. She'd told him she'd left before the altercation, though just barely, and technically it was true. She just left out the part about doubling back.

She'd wondered, briefly, if the turian she'd met had been part of the whole thing. The coincidence didn't sit well with her, but neither did it make sense that he'd had any sort of stake in the altercation. If he'd been with the mercs, why send her to them to potentially fumble their plans? If he'd known of their intentions and wanted to stop them, it would have made little sense to redirect a lone, poorly armed human when he himself had been decked out in full armor and armed to the teeth -literally, in a turian's case.

She'd mentioned the encounter to Kenn.

"Sounds like Gavorn," said the quarian, while packing up a repaired VI module the batarian on the other side of the counter was picking up. "Aria keeps him around for his, ah, extermination skills."

"Extermination?" She echoed, one eyebrow arching. They had grown in over the past two nights. No such luck for her scalp, however; it was still smooth as an egg. She'd taken to wearing a dark knit cap she could pull down past her ears. It made her look even less like Commander Shepard than ever, which she told herself was a good thing.

The batarian was nodding. "Damn vorcha are vermin," he said, reaching for his package. "If I had Aria's ear, I'd tell her to round them all up, push them all out the nearest airlock." His gaze flicked to her, and his grin went malicious, sharp teeth filling the widening gap between his lips. "Humans, too."

"Well, at least we're the _second_ vermin-qualifying race to come to mind," she replied, voice too low to be mistaken for true amusement.

"I didn't say that, human," the batarian leered. "Suit-rats take second. You get third. Congratulations."

The batarian laughed, and left. Beside her, Kenn had done a remarkable job of not reacting. No slumping shoulders, no stiffening like she had displayed.

"That must get old," she offered.

"You get used to it," he sighed, shifting awkwardly. It was a subtle movement, one that most people would likely mistake for an attempt to correct an itchy patch of suit, or an uncomfortable seal. Most people also hadn't spent time watching Tali'Zorah try to be friends with a mildly xenophobe of a Gunnery Chief.

"What's on your mind, Kenn?" She asked.

"Xeno hating batarians aside?" He asked.

"Batarians aside," she agreed.

Kenn lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Just...missing the Flotilla, is all. It wasn't so bad, actually, when I was alone. I got used to it."

Smiling, Shepard turned and leaned one hip against the counter, crossing her arms and settling her weight back, a comfortable position that let her keep both Kenn and the marketplace in view.

"Then I came along? Getting attached already, Kenn?"

He laughed, the sound reverberating out through his suit's audio ports. "It's...nice to not be alone. And you haven't backstabbed me yet, or, you know, loosened one of my seals while I slept, so so far so good."

Shepard snorted. Beneath the kid's jovial tone had been a note of seriousness that was sobering. For all he was doing his best to keep her at arm's length, as much as he could, he was also lonely. Cramming an entire exiled species into a single -if vast- fleet meant social ties were strong and deeply ingrained. Tali had once told her that the reason she liked engineering so much was that it was never empty.

Shepard exhaled through her nose, tapping one finger against her elbow.

"How much longer til we can fence those parts, do you think?" She asked. She had her own estimation, but something she'd learned hard and well was how to trust the advice and opinions of someone who'd been doing something longer and better than she had.

"A few days, at most," Kenn replied. "Karoon has already sent out another message to all the local dealers, this morning, looking for something else. His focus has shifted. I figure another day or two to be safe…"

Shepard nodded, partly to herself, a plan forming in her mind.

She missed her people, too. And that bottle of levo whiskey was still stowed in her locker, missing a dextro counterpart; drinking alone was no fun.

"I'll be back in an hour," she told him. Then, remembering their supposed employer-employee arrangement, she added, "If you're done with your repairs and don't need me to man the counter?"

Kenn waved a hand at her. "With you here, I've been getting my client jobs done in half the time, so I'm all caught up. Go on."

Just as well she was headed out to get something for him- she felt she owed the kid for being so willing to let his new business partner out of his sight so often, and for no reason. Not for the first time, she really wondered how he'd lasted so long with such a trusting nature. How did he know she wasn't going to meet some nefarious consort, bent on ruining him? Not that he was really much worth ruining… His little corner shop was hardly a blip on the radar.

Thinking of business sabotage made her think of the numbers they'd gone over just that morning. He'd been right about his ability to churn out more repair jobs with her there to keep an eye on other things. In just the past few days -had she really been here a week?- his profit margin had widened considerably, and even without the sale of the parts she'd pilfered from the shuttle, they'd have enough for tickets in another few weeks. Not that either of them were willing to wait that long, if they had a choice…

The asari-owned corner store was empty. No rough-clothed matriarch shopkeeper, no smart-mouthed maiden daughter. The shelves were completely bare, the windows were broken, and the sign above the door was dark. She frowned at it, wondering if the family of two were all right. Also wondering where else she could go to find a bottle of dextro liquor she could be reasonably sure wasn't some sort of watered down antifreeze.

Over the past week, she'd explored Omega a few times, listened to rumors and whispers. She knew there was one place she could go and be reasonably sure what she was getting wouldn't be mostly worthless, or poisoned, or both. That would be the throne of the Queen of Omega herself, the Afterlife club. No one would dare try to pull anything right beneath the asari biotic's nose.

Shepard wouldn't be permitted into the main portion of the club itself, of course, not looking like she was and without an invitation. There were, however, satellite clubs attached to the main one where more ordinary denizens willing to settle for seedier surroundings might manage to wiggle their way in.

Shepard didn't bother with the wiggling. She just walked in. The batarian guarding the door glowered at her, but said nothing. There was a rhythm to Omega, an ebb and flow that superseded the pricetag of one's armor, or the hash marked kill scores on a gauntlet. It was the give-and-take of knowing where you belonged, knowing what you could and couldn't handle. Shepard's stride and her hand's casual proximity to her weapon, without actually needing to fondle it, was as good as an invitation or a password in this particular echelon of a place.

"Careful," the batarian said as she passed him. "Forvan is working tonight."

Even without being sure of what he was talking about, she gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement before moving past him. No need to be outright rude, and he'd sounded like he was actually trying to deliver a genuinely helpful warning. Interesting.

Only the name above the door would tell someone this place was technically part of Afterlife. Despite never having seen the inside of the main club, Shepard would be willing to bet it wouldn't have the stained and sticky floor, the too-dim red lights, the dancers with blown-out pupils who trembled more than they danced. The bar looked sufficiently stocked, at least, which was all she cared about.

"Turian brandy," she said when the batarian bartender glanced her way and jerked his chin at her in a universal 'what do you want?' gesture. "A bottle. A _sealed_ bottle."

The batarian gifted her with a wide, noxious grin. Over his shoulder he hollered her order back to someone else, some sort of barback, she assumed. He returned to his previous task of wiping out glasses -which didn't look any less grimy when he was done- and completely ignoring anyone not actively paying or ordering.

She didn't sit, not wanting to give the impression she was staying and perhaps invite unwanted company- the turian in red seated a few stools down to her right was sending her sidelong glances she didn't care for. She kept an eye on him out of the corner of her peripheral, and saw when he raised two of his three digits towards the bartender, then gestured with one digit to himself, and then down at her. The batarian didn't give any overt sign of acknowledgement, but he put down two tumblers with colored rims, one red and one blue, dumped in some ice and filled them from different bottles. He shoved one towards her, and the other towards the turian. The red-rimmed glass slid across the damp bar and came to a rest near her elbow.

She glanced to it, then to the turian in red. He raised his blue-rimmed glass, grinning at her. She kept her fingers still with an effort; the more she thought, the louder they wanted to drum on the nearest surface. It was a habit she thought she'd kicked in her teens that she'd noticed returning in force since...well, since coming back from the dead. Or out of a coma. Or whatever state she'd been in the past two years.

Two years.

Every time she thought she'd managed to forget, to put it aside to deal with later, something brought it roaring to the front of her thoughts, and her gut twisted like she'd chugged ryncol. She eyeballed the red-rimmed tumbler, and suddenly she wanted its contents more than anything else.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this had been a bad idea.

"Here." The bartender's voice cut into her impromptu inner-demon-wrestling match, and set down a long-necked blue bottle with a thunk. She passed him her credit chit. He frowned at her untouched drink.

The turian in red had moved, and she silently urged the bartender to go faster with that damn credit chit as her unwanted drinking buddy settled into the stool next to where she stood.

"If you're not into brandy, I think this place actually has a bottle of human wine somewhere," he said, subvocals vibrating across her skin in a way she did not like. She sent him a cool sidelong glance. She was in no mood to be polite, but she also wasn't of a mind to earn an enemy, even one as basic as a spurned bar patron.

For someone who seemed to have a human fetish, the turian certainly misread her expression. Or he didn't care. Without waiting for her to respond vocally, he turned to the bartender and waved to get his attention.

"Forvan! Do you still have that bottle of burgundy?"

Shepard blinked. Forvan? That was the name the door guard had mentioned. Her this-is-not-a-good-scenario meter pinged up a notch.

"Don't worry about it," she told the bartender. "Just finish up our transaction and I'll be on my way."

"At least finish the drink I already poured," the bartender groused, a tone of stung pride making its way into his voice. He returned with her credit chit and held it up, looking pointedly at the glass at her elbow. Shepard grabbed for the bottle with one hand, the glass with the other, downing the second in one long gulp before flipping it and placing it back on the counter with a little more force than was necessary.

"Gentlemen," she said, and turned to leave.

"A round on the house!" The bartender announced behind her. She didn't really pay attention, she was too busy pretending not to hear the red-clad turian's dismayed calls. "To the victims of Torfan!"

Shepard paused at the door.

Torfan.

It had been awhile since she'd heard that word. That name. Nasty business, any way it was looked at.

With a sick feeling twisting her gut, not born solely of sudden intuition, Shepard turned and pinned the grinning batarian with a stare she usually reserved for people she shortly intended to introduce to the business end of her rifle. Forgotten, the turian in red was frowning, looking back and forth between her and the bartender.

Shepard turned away again, walking outside with quick, measured strides. She ignored the door guard's pitying stare as she began to fight with her increasingly uncoordinated feet, her vision swirling with too-bright colors and streaks of blurs. She found an alcove filled with trash, and she used the horrid smell of rotting she-didn't-want-to-know what to help her accomplish her goal; immediate, aggressive, projectile vomiting. Bile and booze burned its way up and out, filling her nostrils with the acrid stench. Was it just the mixed acids she was tasting, or could she actually pick out the poison now that she knew it was there?

She managed to not pass out. Barely. She wasn't actually entirely sure she didn't dip in and out of consciousness, just never long enough to fall face first into her own mess. She had slumped against one wall of the alcove, and was doing her best to maintain what awareness she could while also trying to figure out if she was in any actual danger of dying. It was hard to tell when most of her body was numb.

"Impressive," said a voice from behind. Shepard managed to push herself upright, even going so far as to make it to her knees.

"So glad someone enjoyed the show," she coughed out, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Numb feet or no, she _was_ going to stand.

"I meant your continued status among the living," the voice continued. Human. Female. Shepard's blurry vision told her it was a lanky blonde in a dented blue hardsuit. Faintly, she realized she recognized the model as an old Alliance issue. Not that that meant anything, she told herself before she could hope. Military gear had been ending up in the aftermarket surplus stores, purchasable by civilians, before time immemorial.

"Does the bartender pull this stunt often?" Shepard asked, her voice hoarse.

"Not often enough to attract Aria's notice. She'd skin alive anyone she caught murdering her patrons." The blonde shrugged, leaning casually against the wall beside Shepard. "But yeah, you're not the first, if that's what you meant. The first to survive, though."

"I'm an overachiever," Shepard quipped, finally beginning to catch her breath. She leaned her head back against the wall, shutting her eyes against the pounding migraine that was building.

"If you've got a safe place to stay for the night, I can help you get there," the woman offered, the implication being that was where her help would end. It was more than most would offer without some sort of inferred compensation.

"I can get there myself, thanks," Shepard replied, using the wall to push herself to her feet, finally. She still could barely feel her toes, but her feet and legs had been upgraded to 'painful tingling,' which she could work with.

The woman gave a short laugh that was half derisive, half impressed. Shepard gave her a look, hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.

"Not as stupid as you look," the hardsuited woman said with a smirk, then reached for Shepard's arm and pulled it over her shoulder. Surprisingly, Shepard had managed to keep her other hand firmly around the neck of the bottle of turian brandy.

There was a pause as they lumbered up a flight of steps. Then, "Call me Monty."

"Red. Nice to meet you, Monty."

"Red? What's that supposed to refer to?" Monty was snickering, glancing pointedly to Shepard's distinct lack of anything red, specifically hair. Her hat had gone missing at some point.

"What's Monty refer to?"

"Monteague," was the immediate reply, the tone daring Shepard to say anything.

Shepard wasn't exactly thinking clearly. "Is your boyfriend's name Capulet?" Her face hurt from grinning so hard; apparently, some of the poison had made it to her brain.

"Capulet was Juliet, smartass."

"Allright, so is your _girlfriend's_ name-" Shepard's retort was cut off abruptly when Monty's free hand whipped around and bludgeoned Shepard upside her head. It had been a decently solid blow, one that would have smarted even if Shepard hadn't been attempting to forgot she had a head at all. As it was, she gave a sharp grunt as multicolored stars exploded behind her eyes.

"Not sorry," Monty informed her.

"Wouldn't expect you to be," Shepard replied, trying not to sound breathless. It really was a spectacular headache.

Monty seemed surprised when Shepard directed them to stop in front of Kenn's.

" _You're_ Kenn's new shop girl?" She said, incredulous.

Girl? Shepard blinked at her. _Girl?_

Later, she would tell her that the combination of headache and insult was what distracted her the extra half a moment it took her to notice that Kenn's shop was...empty. The kiosk on the counter was dark, the carts of junk and outdated tech missing entirely. Kenn himself was nowhere to be seen.

Shepard pulled herself free of Monty's supportive assistance. He must have closed up shop early- why? Had Karoon found him? She went to the door at the back of the shop, palming it open while ducking to the side, remembering the turrets. When there was no whine of laser fire powering up, she poked her head around to see inside.

The turret shelves were empty. She could see her footlocker from the doorway. It was open, on its side, and also empty.

Shepard blinked.

Well…. Damn.

"Looks like the kid finally scraped together enough to get off this rock," Monty said casually. "Good for him."

Shepard palmed the doors closed, then lifted her free hand to push the heel into the space between her eyes, feeling the bridge of her nose compress. She inhaled deeply, pushed the pain of the headache and the lingering poison aside, then dropped her hand and straightened. She looked at Monty, grinned wryly, and held out the bottle.

"Got any dextro friends who'd appreciate this? Seems I'm short one."

* * *

He'd left the levo whiskey, at least. That was something.

True to Monty's implied word, she'd left after making sure Shepard had somewhere with a door that locked to recover before taking off, citing prior appointments. After barricading herself inside the little studio apartment, Shepard began taking inventory of what was left. She'd have to start from scratch, but that was fine, she'd been in worse spots. Ilos. Eden Prime. Virmire. Hell, _Alchera_.

And those were the recent ones.

The furniture remained, of course, and Shepard's borrowed blanket. The empty footlocker. Her boxes of rations, one of which was pretty much empty. A few more boxes of odds and ends, wires and connectors hanging out. She found the whiskey in the refrigeration unit, which had been turned on when it never had been before.

Odd.

Shepard tapped a finger against the fridge door, staring at the bottle. The light behind it illuminated the dark liquid inside the clear bottle, and Shepard's frown deepened when she noticed the seal had been broken, but the bottle still seemed full. Another attempt at poisoning?

Shepard pulled the bottle out of the fridge and held it up to the light. There was something in the bottom, something that hadn't been there before. She found a metal bowl in one of the cupboards, and poured out the whiskey. She'd be damned if she was going to waste the stuff, but she also couldn't afford to drink it, not when she was becoming more and more certain by the second not all was as it seemed.

An omnitool implant fell out of the bottle and landed with a splash in the bowl. Droplets of whiskey hit her wrist, and she drenched her hand further when she dipped her fingers into the bowl to fish out the chip. She bounced the small thing, no bigger than the first joint of her thumb, on her palm and frowned at it. The highly versatile bit of tech had been one of the first 'weapons' the Alliance had reverse engineered during the First Contact War, and they had only improved with time. This one, however, was a quarian design, meant to be inserted into an external port on a quarian suit. Shepard had no such port in her own flesh and blood and bone wrist, so she wasn't quite sure how to-

She paused, and her gaze snapped to the boxes of miscellaneous junk she had spotted earlier. Sure enough, halfway through digging through the second one, she found a human omniband. She clicked the chip into place, then snapped the narrow cuff around her left wrist, the chip's port pressed against her inner wrist. It wasn't the most advanced model, certainly nowhere near the grade of quality she had been able to acquire under her Spectre authority, but it was better than nothing. She fired up the luminous orange interface, and thought it felt like having sensation restored to a previously paralyzed limb.

Almost immediately after the interface fully actualized, a startup message popped up.

' _Get out. -K'_

Shepard blinked, looked around, frowning. Then she dismissed the glowing orange interface, grabbed her empty rucksack from the couch, tossed in her rations, and then she damn well got out. She'd never been one to ignore a warning that had clearly taken effort to leave behind.

She paused at the doorway, looking back at the bowl of whiskey and the empty bottle. She couldn't believe she'd almost forgotten-

A line of fire zipped across her cheek, and without consciously planning to do so Shepard dropped and rolled, coming to a hard stop behind the shop's counter. She planted her back against the hard metal and drew her M-3 from her thigh, checked the Kessler at her opposite hip -the one she'd taken off of heart-attack kid- and waited.

When an incendiary round zipped overhead to explode against the far back wall of the shop, she was ready, and didn't bolt. Flames exploded across the corrugated floor, but without anything to fuel it beyond its initial impact, it fizzled out. Shepard calmly pressed a wetted thumb to the smoldering bit of debris that had found purchase in her other sleeve, snuffing out the little red spark before it had time to do more than blink.

"You'll have to do better than that!" She shouted. She rose into a crouch, careful to keep her head down below the counter. "What did you do with the quarian?"

No response, of course. Shepard ran over the options; Karoon, Cerberus, or a third unknown party. Or a fourth, for all she knew, someone with no prior ties to either her or Kenn but who might want this spot, or competition eliminated, or any other number of scenarios. One thing she was certain of, whoever was shooting at her was responsible for Kenn's abrupt disappearance. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was; people who cared enough about who they were leaving behind to give a hidden warning were not people who left without a farewell, not if they had a choice. Kenn was in trouble.

"You know, there have been a few people in my life who have thought messing with me and mine was a good idea," she said, her conversational tone marred somewhat by the volume. "Care to guess how it ended for them?"

"No need to guess," came, at last, the reply. "I'd wager I know the manner of their demises as well as you, Shepard."

Shepard's hands, occupied with checking the viability of her M-3's heatsink, went abruptly still.

"Not sure where you're getting that name," she replied back. "Don't see any goats or sheep around here, do you?"

"Amusing, Shepard," came the same voice. Female, human, lightly accented with something...european? Shepard's last trip to earth had been long enough ago that she couldn't quite be sure. Australian? Didn't much matter, really.

"I'm only going to ask once more," Shepard shouted back, sidestepping the name thing completely. Arguing the point would only cement their confidence in her identity. At least now she was pretty sure who she was dealing with. Only Cerberus could be so certain of who she was, when the rest of the galaxy thought her dead.

"Where is Kenn?"

"Kenn'Raan nar Tonbay has been aided in the completion of his pilgrimage and is on his way back to the Flotilla."

"Nice little happy ending. Too bad I don't believe you." Shepard's eyes landed on a broken bit of reflective metal, and toed it within reach of her hand. She lifted the metal, edging it up above the edge of the counter with slow, deliberate care until she was able to catch a glimpse of what was on the other side and across the market-

The bit of metal shattered, another shot tearing it from her hand. She snatched her limb back down to safety.

"Really, this is a waste of everyone's time." The voice sounded exasperated, now. "We mean you no harm, I swear it."

"Funny way of showing it," Shepard retorted. "What with the liberal use of bullets and all."

"An overzealous operative," was the reply, and it was icy. "Who shall be dealt with accordingly once this is all explained."

"So explain," Shepard said. "I'm good right where I am until then."

" _Shepard._ " The cultured tones were marred by audible impatience, and some annoyance. "This is a waste of everyone's time."

"Now that we can agree on," Shepard replied. She shook out the fingers that had been holding that bit of metal- they still stung. "Surrender now, and I'll let you leave peacefully."

" _Red?"_

Shepard frowned down at her omnitool as a small orange square flickered into visibility, indicating she was receiving a communication.

" _Red, are you there?"_ It was Kenn. Shepard breathed a silent sigh of relief. Not wanting her Cerberus friends to hear their conversation, she brought up the manual input screen and typed out her response.

 _I'm here. Met the friends I think you tried to warn me about. -R_

This time, Kenn's communication was typed, also, _Sorry about that. They made it very clear I was to go and not come back. Pretty sure I'd be dead if I'd argued. Plus, they paid me a ridiculous sum to clear out. So, good news, once we get you out of this, no need to wait for those parts to cool down for fencing. -K_

Shepard grinned. _Good to know. -R_

Then, _We? -R_

Kenn replied, _Sending some friends who owe me a few favors. You've met one of them. -K_

Shepard blinked at the screen, then her grin broadened.

God, she loved quarians.

 _See, now I feel bad for giving away that bottle of turian brandy I got you. -R_

 _You'll make it up to me. Now get ready, my friends are almost there. They want to know if you can arrange a distraction? -K_

 _Consider it done. -R_

Shepard pitched a loud, drawn out sigh. "Give me something, here," she said to her Cerberus audience. "You can't really expect someone you just shot at to give in after a little sweet talking."

There was a pause, then, "Reasonable enough, I suppose. Did you have anything in mind?"

"Sure. How did you find me?"

If Shepard got out of this, that would be the most useful bit of information. It wasn't the question she wanted to ask - _how am I alive? was I ever really dead? what the hell did you do to me?_ \- but it was the one she needed to ask.

"It was simple once we realized you had actually come here," the Cerberus woman replied. "I had argued from the first you'd flee to Omega, but I was...overruled. We found the docking bay 'attendants' you'd dealt with upon your arrival. Their leader was most amenable to answering our inquiries once we compensated him for his 'losses' at your hands."

Shepard closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the counter. She had thought she'd been careful, clever. Apparently, she'd been neither in sufficient quantities. For a heartbeat, she was painfully glad she was more or less alone; miscalculations like that were what got people killed.

"I'm coming out," she shouted, and she didn't need to force the sound of frustration in her voice. "I better not see a single scope."

She tapped a quick command into her omnitool, then let her left arm fall down by her side, her index finger curled against her palm the only thing not relaxed. She stood slowly, hoping she wasn't miscalculating yet again, and stepped clear of the counter with her M-3 Predator held up in the universal position of compliance.

Across the empty marketplace square, a bay of crates -she thought all the crates in the galaxy went to Omega to die- shielded a handful of humans in unadorned, unmarked grey armor. A tall, svelte woman in a form-fitting combat suit of expensive textiles stood out in the open, hands empty. Her red-brown hair curled softly against her shoulders, bright eyes tracking Shepard's slightest move.

"Thank you," the woman said. "I'm Miranda Lawson. I promise, I'll explain everything once we get you away-"

Without waiting for the completion of the empty pledge, Shepard pressed her index finger against the glowing orange pre-set command on her palm, triggering the surge of combined mini EM pulses and junk data. Without time to set a targeting vector, she couldn't aim for the Cerberus operatives' shields. Instead, the Omega Marketplace sign directly above them sparked spectacularly, raining down a shower of glass and fire and luminous red-orange fluid that sent the terrorists scampering. Behind her, even Kenn's kiosk popped open with a small explosion.

Almost indistinguishable from the pop and crackle of the exploding signage, the rat-a-tat of gunfire filled the air, most of it aimed at the Cerberus operatives. One of them looked to Shepard, and managed to take aim with his rifle before a neat little red hole in his forehead made him fall back. Shepard dived to the side, back behind the counter at the same moment a sharp pain dug into her arm. She grunted as she hit the corrugated floor, hand reaching out to smack at the ember that must have caught her sleeve. Instead of encountering a spot of heat, her fingers tangled with a small syringe, its needle plunged deep into the flesh of her bicep.

This time, there was no fighting the pull of unconsciousness.

* * *

 _In case you couldn't tell, this chapter was originally supposed to be two. First half felt blah without the second, though. Thanks to everyone who pitched in with advice for the squad arrangements! Monty's inspiration was my recent reread of Garrus's issue of Homeworlds, 'A Bullet for Your Sins.' In one panel, there are a few of the squad members standing in the background, and one of them is a human female with short blonde hair. And yes, I am aware she spells her name differently (or rather, BW spelled her name differently) than the traditional character from Romeo and Juliet._

 _Hope you enjoyed!_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

The moment she was awake enough to feel anything, anything at all, Shepard began to recognize the signs of being drugged. Her limbs were too heavy to be weighted by normal drowsiness, and an undulating numbness that was too well synced with her heartbeat to anything but artificial. There was the feel of cotton and the taste of something acerbic at the back of her tongue, clogging her throat and making swallowing an exercise in willpower.

She kept her breathing deep and even. The last she could recall, one of Cerberus' tranq shots had actually managed to hit her - _sloppy_ \- and she had gone down before the winner of the altercation had been determined. She could be with friendlies, or...less friendlies. Cerberus, or Kenn's friends. Not that she didn't trust Kenn's best intentions, but the kid had demonstrated an unnerving willingness to trust -herself being the case in point- that made her less wanting to hand herself over to them in a unconscious state.

Not that she'd had a choice…

Movement in the room, the sound of fabric on flesh, alerted Shepard to her lack of solidarity. She kept her breathing controlled, and listened. There was the faint sound of music, thrumming through the walls and floor and up through the bed -couch?- she lay on. She had mistaken it for part of her body's lingering reaction to the tranquilizer.

Whoever was in the room began humming along with the music, and Shepard was mildly surprised to realize she recognized the tune. It was a cover of a cover of a cover of some song written decades before even her mother was born, it's cemented status as a classic ensuring it endured in some form through the ages. Shepard was further intrigued when the humming shifted in pitch, almost vibrating, revealing it wasn't a human voice. It was feminine, of that she was sure, but definitely not human and not asari, or even turian. It lacked the echoing quality of a hanar, the bumblebee rumble of a drell, the enviro suit synthesization of a quarian, and comparing it to an elcor just made her want to laugh.

It sounded...batarian? A female batarian?

Huh.

Well, that probably wasn't good. The Hegemony was the most secluded, tight fisted, socially tetchy peoples known to the galaxy, notorious in equal parts for their harsh caste system, their prolific use of slavery, and their way of tethering their females to their homeworld and a few select colonies. The chances of there being a batarian woman on Omega who was with friendlies…

Oh boy.

Footsteps. Male from the weight of the thumps, human or batarian by the gait. Drell was an option, but given the statistics not very likely.

"How is she, Nalah?" A human man's voice asked, quietly. Shepard heard a chair's legs being scraped along the hard floor, the shift of fabric against limbs. Someone standing.

"As well as can be expected," the female who'd been humming replied. "Although I'm having trouble understanding why Cerberus used such a strong dose. It was too large to be a miscalculation- it was measured to _kill_ a human, Adam."

"But if they wanted to kill her, why use tranqs at all?"

"Exactly." Footsteps brought the speakers nearer to Shepard. She kept still, kept control of her breathing. She had to fight against tensing when a hand, shockingly gentle when compared to Shepard's past week, brushed against her shoulder while adjusting the blanket that covered her.

"How much longer do you think she'll be out?" The male, Adam, asked.

"I told Garrus at least the day, given the dosage that somehow _didn't_ kill her."

Hearing the name of her old squadmate was like being dipped in eezo. Shepard felt a jolt go through her body and erase the remaining fatigue. Adrenaline, she knew it was, but it sure as hell felt like she'd bitten a live wire.

Well, least that answered the question of friendly or less than. Whether he know who she was or not, Garrus wasn't the type to carry someone off only to do…. _things_.

"Has Ripper gotten anything out of the Cerberus agent?" Nalah asked.

"Only that they were here to pick up one of their own," Adam replied. She thought she heard a shrug in his voice.

Nalah made a sound of disgust. "I know it's...necessary, but I still wish we'd just killed him and waited for her to wake. Kenn seems convinced she'll give us the whole story easily enough."

"Boss can be impatient when it comes to terrorists."

"Impatient? Try vindictive."

"Masochistic? Merciless? Acrimonious?" Now there was a grin in Adam's voice, and Shepard decided she'd heard enough.

With careful deliberateness, Shepard inhaled deeply. The conversation ceased with the sort of abruptness that ratcheted the tension in the room up a few notches. When she opened her eyes and turned her head, she saw a tall, broad shouldered human male standing beside a -ha, she'd gotten it right- batarian woman, both staring at her as if watching a corpse breath anew.

"By the Pillars," the woman breathed, and then she was moving with an alacrity that reminded Shepard uncomfortably of another medically-minded woman she'd known. Karin had once stared at her in a similar fashion, after Eden Prime.

Shepard held still and submitted to the routine checks she knew was coming. While Nalah examined every inch of her charge through the glaring glow of her omnitool interface, Shepard eyed the man, Adam.

"Care to tell me where I am? What's going on?" She asked, careful to keep The Commander out of her tone.

"Name's Adam, Adam Butler," the man said with a little incline of his head that smacked of outdated manners. "Your buddy Kenn let us know you were about to have some trouble with some folks we ourselves aren't too fond of. Since the kid's done us a few solids, we figured we'd lend a hand."

" _How_ are you _awake…_ " Nalah muttered. Her coloring was a delicate blend of soft browns fading to gentle pinks, the ridges shadowing both pairs of eyes more subtle than on a male. Her neck was more slender, her chin more pointed, but other than that there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two genders. Still, Shepard thought that by batarian standards, Nalah was quite pretty.

"Sleep is boring," Shepard replied with a light shrug. "I thought I'd done enough of it for one day." She looked back to Butler. "How long have I been out?"

"Only a few hours," Nalah answered for him. "Although _how_ is something you are going to sit there, quietly, and let me figure out. You might be about to die of a...a…"

"A stroke? Heartattack? Toxic shock?" Butler offered. To Shepard he said, "She's not too familiar with the things that like to kill humans. She's learning, though. With help." He grinned, and Shepard had a feeling she knew where a lot of that 'help' was coming from. The edge of a bandage was just visible beneath the cuff of his left sleeve.

"Yes, any one of those," the woman replied, waving away the rest of Butler's words. "Now, Red -may I call you that? That's the name Kenn gave. What sort of implants do you have? I know your human Alliance is fond of stuffing their soldiers full of tech, but I've never heard of any that could metabolize that much this quickly…" She trailed off as Shepard gently pushed aside her omnitool-engulfed arm, and stood. More of those phantom aches, the ones that permeated every cell, every vein, every joint, reminded her that they hadn't gone anywhere as she moved.

"Maybe another time, Doc," she said. "Right now, I need to see Kenn. And...and Archangel." She didn't want them to know how long she'd been awake, and as far as they knew she'd have no other way of knowing their 'boss's name. Besides, the moniker resonated with appropriateness, and yet at the same time smacked endlessly of the mild awkwardness she'd found so amusing in her old friend.

Nalah and Butler exchanged a meaningful glance, and something about the amount of information Shepard saw passed within that single glance made her look at their hands. Rings. Matching human wedding bands.

Shepard's left eyebrow developed a sense of independence, and rose before she could stop it. She said nothing, however, and managed to school her features by the time their gazes returned to regarding her.

"Follow me," Butler said. Shepard nodded politely to Nalah, and followed.

She didn't fail to notice that while her clothing was intact, her weapons and their holsters were gone. She ran a hand across her scalp, frowning, unable to stop herself from cataloguing all the things she passed that could be used as weapons in the event that all of what she'd seen and heard so far had been part of some elaborate ruse to lull her into complacency. Normally, she'd be reluctant to consider such an involved scheme, but this was Cerberus she was thinking of. The same people who had thought breeding an unstoppable army of formerly extinct, telepathic insects was a good idea. She wasn't ready to ever put anything past them.

Paranoid? Yes. Alive? Also yes. She'd never be convinced those two weren't connected.

Walking more or less beside her now, Butler noticed her frown and reached to his back pocket. Her eyes tracked the hand's movement, but all he pulled out was a folded knit cap, identical to the one she'd lost. He handed it to her with a wide grin.

"Some chicks can pull off the bald look. Pretty as you are, darlin, you ain't one of em."

Shepard snorted, the sound coming precariously close to a laugh. She took the hat and pulled it on.

"Noted," she replied wryly.

"You Alliance?" He asked, leading her down a barren hall towards a standard hydraulic door. He hit the controls and it cycled open. "I ask because of the way you say some things, the way you walk."

"Hmn," Shepard made a noncommittal noise, neither an affirmative nor a denial. There wasn't much point in either; military recognized military.

"No big deal either way," Butler went on. "Monty is ex-Alliance. Boss is ex-military, too- well, all turians are, I guess, so that puts Ripper in the same boat. We're all pretty sure Mierin was STG, though he won't confirm or deny anything."

Shepard blinked. STG? Female batarians? What sort of circus was Garrus tangled up in? She recalled Nalah and Butler's comments about an agent being in the hands of someone called 'Ripper,' Butler's implications that this Ripper was turian, and that they were tasked with 'getting things out of' said agent.

Something twisted in Shepard's gut. Something she recognized, something ugly. She inhaled through her nose, let it out slowly through parted lips, and tamped down on the feeling. No time for it, now. She'd known since the Saleon mess that Garrus had a streak of something potentially dark and unforgiving. Did she have so much hubris as to think a few months with her way of doing things would have completely erased that?

Besides. Not like she hadn't done her fair share of 'getting things out of ' people.

On the other side of the door, the music got louder. Shepard didn't see a sound system, and realized they had integrated speakers in the walls of what looked like the main room of the complex. Across the space she could see a set of stairs leading up to the second floor, a kitchen to her right, and beyond that what looked like the main entry. Mismatched couches filled a good chunk of the remaining spaces, interspersed with bookshelves that were mostly bare.

"Hey guys," Butler announced. "Everyone say hi to Kenn's little friend, Red."

Girl. Chick. Darlin. _Little._

And she thought N7 training had been an exercise in patience.

There was a bay of work benches to her left, tools and mods piled atop them. The purple-blue asari seated at one of the benches glanced up, gave Shepard a once over, then a gun-oil greased hand rose in a brief wave. In the kitchen, a batarian looked up from whatever he was cooking, gave a terse nod of acknowledgement, then went back to his meal preparations.

"Where is everyone?" Butler asked.

"Watching the show," the asari answered. Her tone was neutral, carefully so.

"Aw, hell," Butler groused. "That means I missed the betting." He proceeded on across the main room, around and behind the flight of steps to another door. Another set of steps led down into a sub basement, with more doors and more rooms, including an entire warehouse that looked like it was severe disuse. Shepard found herself keeping ahold of of her blank expression with some effort; how big was this place?

Eventually they came to a small hall off the main warehouse, and he led her through one door that opened to reveal a handful of people -a krogan, a salarian, a batarian, a human kid that couldn't be more than fourteen, and a blonde human woman- standing and facing the wall that separated this room from the next. That wall, Shepard realized, was a one-way mirror.

"Fancy meeting you here, Red," said the blonde woman, and Shepard blinked when she realized she knew her.

"Monty," Shepard greeted her with a nod and a smile. "What's going on?" As she asked, she looked through the one-way mirror, and her eyebrow rose again. With her mind thoroughly distracted by what she was seeing, her body took up a familiar pose. She settled her weight back against her right foot, cocking one hip out to balance the weight while crossing her arms. It was a deceptive stance, one that spoke of casualness and yet abled her to spring forward, shift to the side, or drop into a crouch without losing her balance. It was the posture she adopted when she was bracing herself...or caught offguard and not wanting to show it.

Garrus was in the room beyond the tinted glass, a human man in nondescript grey clothing tied to a chair. His nose was clearly broken, the front of his shirt sheeted in congealing red. Another turian, a female -Ripper, Shepard assumed- stood nearby, absently filing one of her talon-tipped fingers. In the corner, another batarian woman with coloring similar to Nalah's stood with a vital-monitoring program up on her omnitool. Judging by what little of its readout Shepard could read from a distance, the Cerberus agent was in significant amounts of pain -broken nose, fractured rib, several pulled muscles- but in no danger of dying.

"Let's try this again," came a deep, reverberating voice Shepard hardly recognized. The sound in the other room was audible in this one via a set of audio ports above the window.

Garrus came to crouch down in front of the bound human, his voice was full of casual promise. Despite being intimately familiar with scare tactics herself, it sent a shiver down her arms. The fact that the speaker was Garrus, someone she _knew_ , didn't seem to make a damn bit of difference.

"What's the pool at?" Butler asked, quietly.

"Hundred credits on the next two minutes," Monty replied, equally quiet. "He's already pissed himself twice. Just promised to talk if Garrus keeps Ripper away from him, and she hardly did more than scratch him."

There was a pause, then the krogan rumbled, "Yeah, but _where_ she scratched him-"

"Quiet, please," the salarian snapped, gaze intent on the unfolding event just a pane of glass away.

"I'm waiting," Garrus said, voice deceptively soft. "I can wait all day."

The human let out a gasp that was half pained, half laughter. "Oh, I bet," was the reply. He hawked something at the back of his throat, then spat a wad of something wet and red at Ripper's feet. The turian growled something unintelligible and took a step forward, flexing her newly sharpened talons.

From his crouch, and without looking back at her, Garrus raised one finger, his blue gaze never wavering from the agent. Across one eye, fields of data scrolled down his visor's screen. She doubted the human could read turian script, given his affiliations, but she knew what it would be saying. Heart rate, respiration, distance to lifesigns in the room. She wondered what it was telling him about his prisoner.

Just the one finger, and Ripper stepped back, subdued.

"Do that again," he told the agent. "And I'll let her have you. Cerberus took out her whole family, did you know? Of course not. Besides which, the things I want you to tell me? Mostly just curiosity. Don't really much care why you wanted the human woman. The fact you wanted her, and she didn't want to go with you was enough for me to step in."

Then he stood. A slow, deliberate uncoiling of his full height that had seemed ignorable when he'd been crouching. By the time he was fully erect, towering over the agent, she could tell the message had been successfully delivered. The human hung his head.

"Don't know who she is," he confessed, and Shepard felt the bands around her lungs ease. Having a Cerberus lackey announce they'd had possession of Commander Shepard would have unleashed a whole slew of worms she didn't want to deal with, not now, and not like that. Not until she herself knew what was what.

"Make me believe you," was all Garrus said. The menace in his voice was in the fact there _was_ no menace. Just a simple statement, a casual demand, with all the weight of what would happen if that demand were not met.

The agent shook his head. "Don't know what you think I'd know," he said. "She was just a project. If you're as familiar with our work as you claim, you know we have lots of those."

"What _kind_ of project?" Ripper asked, impatience giving her bristling form an extra edge. The agent glanced at her with evident nervousness.

"Genetics, of some kind," he said. "Tissue cloning, synapse reconstruction, that sort of thing. I only know that because of the shipping records. Only so many things you need that equipment for."

Shepard's lungs seized, and for a moment she thought the air in the room had gone somewhere else. Genetics? Synapses? _Cloning?_

"And that's the only reason you're on my station?" Garrus asked, sounding not at all convinced. Behind him, Ripper flexed her talons again. "One escaped genetic experiment gone rogue?"

The agent nodded emphatically. "Yes, yes! As far as I know, I swear."

Garrus stared down at the man for a moment, then nodded.

A groan went through the room Shepard was in. The nod had, apparently, been a signal that the interrogation was over. Credit chits were withdrawn, funds transferred, and Monty did a little victory dance beside her that was completely at odds with the woman's dented hardsuit and the scar across her lip. The human teen -pre-teen?- male smirked with outrageous portions of obnoxiousness at the krogan paying him.

"Come on, Butler, pay up," Monty crowed.

"What? I didn't make a bet!" Butler unfolded himself from where he'd leaned against the wall behind Shepard.

"Yeah but you always bet the same," the krogan said.

"Bite me, Krul. Can't extract a bet out of someone for what they _might_ -"

"Quiet!" Someone hissed, and again it was the salarian. Everyone went silent at once, their attentions returning to the other room. While they'd been tallying their wins and losses, only Shepard -and apparently the salarian- had been watching Garrus' next move. He'd dismissed the batarian woman and the other turian from the room, leaving himself alone with the agent.

"Never did get your name," he said, almost conversationally, to the human still bound and bleeding to the chair.

The agent barked out a laugh. "Now, you ask?"

"Now, I care," was the retort.

"This is where it gets good," Monty whispered, beside her. She was grinning from ear to ear. Behind them, the door to the audience room opened, and Ripper and the batarian woman entered quietly.

Shepard's senses sharpened, all of her awareness centered on the small table Garrus went to, the one holding the files and knives and other implements that lay there. He picked up the file Ripper had been using. For the first time, she noticed his talons were not blunt as they'd used to be. When she'd sat, side by side with him, in the Normandy's bay and helped him repair the Mako -only fair, she'd always been the one damaging it- she'd always wondered why he'd filed them down, so much shorter and blunter than Nihlus' had been.

Whatever his reasons then, they apparently didn't apply now. They were not as sharp as Ripper's, but they were maintained with the intent of using them to inflict damage. He fiddled with the file for a moment, examining his hands, before putting it down. Drawing attention to the fact that Ripper's wasn't the only tender ministrations the agent had to worry about.

That dark thing, that coiling sickness, returned to Shepard's gut. At the same time, adrenaline began pumping through her system as if she were the one feeling the exhilaration of control, the complete knowledge that you were someone else's whole world, for good or bad… Her fingers twitched, reaching for a comm link that wasn't there, wanting to signal him to stand down.

Her fingers stayed at her side.

"Why...:" the agent's voice shook. "Why would you care?"

"I keep a list," Garrus answered obligingly. His tone was still eerily casual, almost friendly. "Want to know who else is on it?"

"Not...not particularly."

Garrus went on as if his audience had agreed. "Saleon, Kishpaugh, Zel'Aenik…" He named a few more, then paused, hands folded behind him, and Shepard wondered if his mimicry of Saren's most pretentious pose was conscious or not. "I want to know what name to add to the list of people I've let go against my better judgement."

It took an extra heartbeat or two before Shepard, along with everyone else, processed the words. The krogan, Krul, grumbled about half the turian's quad being dysfunctional, Monty groaned and handed back a portion of her winnings to the silent batarian, and the salarian gave a terse nod as if all had gone precisely as he'd planned. Behind her, Shepard heard Ripper sigh almost angrily before pulling out her own chit to pay up.

"Simmons," the agent gasped. "M-my name is Simmons."

"Simmons," Garrus echoed. "I will never see you on my station again. Am I right?"

"Very right," Simmons agreed emphatically.

"That's what I thought," Garrus replied, patting the human on the shoulder as he passed. "Good talking with you." And he left the room. Thinking himself alone, the human slumped, drawing long, ragged breaths in through his mouth to save his broken nose.

Shepard was ready for it, and yet not, when Garrus entered the room. He was met with jeers -you couldn't stretch it out _one_ more minute?- and teasing -Krul thinks you're missing half your quad, want me to check?- and general camaraderie that had Shepard fighting back nostalgia.

"And watch you drink all our money while we wallow in sobriety, Erash?" Garrus said to the one who'd complained about the lack of the extra minute, the otherwise silent batarian. To the offer of checking his quad, made by Monty, "Very funny, Monteague."

He looked to Ripper and said, "Knock him out, take him to the docks and drop him off. Take Erash with you."

Ripper gave a little wave of acknowledgement, jerked her head at Erash, and the two departed.

By the time Garrus' gaze landed on her, she was ready. She'd figure out later if she was Shepard, or a clone, or some abomination of the two. For now, she needed this stranger-with-a-friends-face to help her figure out how to get Kenn off the station and herself back to Alliance space. After she convinced him that she really had been running from Cerberus, that no she didn't know what they'd wanted with her, and no she'd never been with them, wasn't a defector, or anything else potentially dangerous.

"Good to see you up," he said to her. "When we saw you go down, we thought maybe we were too late."

"Nalah thinks she had enough tranquilizer in her to take down an elcor," Butler said. "Was shocked as all get out when she woke up just a bit go, right as rain."

"I'm hard to keep down," Shepard offered, her tone mild.

Visible through the one-way mirror. Ripper and Erash re-entered the room with Simmons. The former knocked him out with a well placed blow, and the two set about untying him from the chair, hoisting him over Erash's shoulder, and carrying him away. Meanwhile, everyone but Garrus, Butler, and Shepard had filed out of the audience room. Fighting against all instinct, Shepard shoved her hands in her pockets and let her shoulders slouch. The posture wasn't unfamiliar, any teen who'd lived had adopted it at one point. It was having her hands hampered, her back slouched, that made her instincts go haywire.

"Where's Kenn?" She asked. Again, careful to keep The Commander from her voice. Now, it was a matter of honesty as much as hesitancy; with the agent's words still ringing in her ears, she wondered if she really even was Shepard. Didn't she remember getting spaced? Didn't the extranet say she was dead? Didn't she have a cyborg's worth of implants making her scars glow eerily from beneath? She hardly felt human. It would make sense if it turned out she wasn't.

"Safe," Garrus told her. He leaned against one wall, watching her.

"I'm gonna need more than that, big guy," she replied. One of his brow plates twitched in the equivalent of an arching eyebrow.

"We put the kid on a transport this morning, after the shoot-out," Bulter told her. "We figured once Cerberus pulled their collective asses back together, they'd go after him again if they couldn't get to you. He's on his way back to the Flotilla now."

Shepard nodded, breathing an unashamed sigh of relief. It was exactly what she'd been hoping to talk them -and Kenn- into doing. She pulled one hand from her pocket, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with the side of her hand, one knuckle pressing against the space between her eyebrows. Her headache was returning. A poisoning, a firefight, and a drug induced coma all within the same twelve hours probably wasn't exactly a recipe for health.

When she lowered her hand, Garrus was looking at her oddly. Butler looked concerned.

"Thanks for that," she said, and meant it. "I don't want him in the crosshairs."

"Then why'd you put him there?" Garrus asked. She looked at him, sharply, her expression carrying the words she couldn't say, not here, not now, not with what was known and unknown left hanging.

"I'm going to go take Nalah home," Butler announced, and very deliberately excused himself from the room.

"You knew Cerberus was gunning for you when you took the job with the kid," Garrus pressed, not letting her respond to his first statement. It was a tactic she knew. It was one she'd taught him. "You knew they wouldn't balk at using non-humans in whatever way worked best for them. You knew this, and still you hung around him, close enough any bullets aimed at you couldn't help but hit him, too. You were reckless, and it put someone in danger."

He was standing directly in front of her by the time he'd stopped talking, and Shepard had to fight to keep from removing her hands from her pockets and...and what? Slugging him? She was certainly angry enough, and they'd sparred enough on the Normandy that she knew where his soft spots were. Push him away? She'd had a krogan warlord in her space, and hadn't backed down.

"I thought I'd lost them," she said, her words measured. She let him win, and took a step back so she wouldn't have to crane her neck to look up at him. "Obviously, I was mistaken. If I'd known they were going to find me, I'd have kept hidden." No way her hands were going to stay where they were. She rocked back on one heel, and crossed her arms. "You pulled my ass out of the fire, Garrus. I'm grateful. But if you think I deliberately put an innocent in harms way, then you don't know me at all."

"I didn't say it was deliberate," he said, his subvocals losing some of their edge. "I said it was _reckless_."

Shepard blinked at him.

On one hand, he was right.

On the other hand…

This was _Garrus_. Lecturing her about _recklessness_.

Was he pulling her string? Did he recognize her afterall, and was this his way of...what? Toying with her? Getting back at her for all her 'you're insanely talented, please stop trying to get yourself killed on my watch' lectures?

She held his gaze for a long moment, searching. She thought she had a better handle on turian expressions than most humans, but even so it was hard to tell if his intent gaze was...expectant? Insistent? Angry? Restrained? They all looked so alike to her. Had she ever thought she knew him well enough to tell for sure? Had he exaggerated his expressions to make it easier for the humans on the Normandy? For her?

Her gaze shifted to his hands at his sides, their curved talons. Had that been something else he'd done only while among humans? Blunted his talons?

She'd just spoke about him not knowing her -of course he didn't, he'd only met 'Red' once before- but suddenly she was wondering if she was the one who'd never known him.

She looked away, lips pressed together in a tight line of frustration. She exhaled sharply, through her nose, and nodded, once.

"Been awhile since I've had to worry about anyone but myself," she said. Technically true- two years true, in fact.

Garrus nodded, also looking away as he raised one hand to scratch absentmindedly at the side of his neck. Apparently, her words were apology enough for him.

"Do you have some place to go?" He asked, gentling his tone. Cruelly, her mind yanked her back to another dim room, another gentle question - _do you have someone to talk to?_ \- after Virmire. Cruel, because she was beginning to doubt if those memories even belonged to her, if they were stolen from someone else, someone who'd earned them.

 _Tissue cloning, synapse reconstruction, that sort of thing._

"Don't worry about me, just make sure Kenn gets somewhere safe," she said, not consciously meaning to so-near echo the the other response to the other question - _Don't worry about me, Vakarian, just make sure Kirrahe and his men are settled until we can get them somewhere safe_.

That brow plate twitched again, and she wished she knew for sure what it meant. Was he remembering, too? Abruptly, she wondered if her gauntness, her baldness, her slouching and her general state of disarray would be enough to fool him forever. She shoved her hands back in her pockets, and looked away.

Did she want to fool him forever?

No. No, not forever. Just until she figured out for herself if she was...herself.

"I'll show myself out," she said. "I saw where the front door was."

"Not that simple," he said. "Our location is something we prefer not be common knowledge."

She wanted to pin him with another 'are you kidding me' look, but settled for a neutral expression when she said, "I wouldn't tell anyone." Then she sighed and added, "But of course you can't take my word for it. What's your procedure for this, Archangel?" Her arms had found their way out of her pockets and to a cross position once again.

He flicked a mandible at her in what was definitely a wry grin, she recognized that much.

"We have a route that goes under the base and through a few of Omega's old mining tunnels. You need a special VI program to navigate it, and by the time you come out the other end you'll be more turned around than a volus that put his suit on backwards."

Despite everything else, she snorted with amusement. Garrus raised one hand in an echo of a gesture of honesty and said, "Seen it. No lie."

"I believe you," she said, because she knew that anywhere you went in the galaxy, police always saw the strangest stuff, and C-Sec would have been no exception.

"I'll have Monty take you," he said. He turned towards the door, and Shepard fell into step beside him. "I heard you two had met already?"

"In a manner of speaking," Shepard answered. "Courtesy of the involvement of a certain turian bartender."

"Forvan," Garrus said, nodding. "Been meaning to deal with him."

"I'll take care of it," Shepard said, waving it away absently. Garrus looked at her, and this time she knew it was a contemplative look.

He led her back to the main room of the complex, summoned Monty with a gesture, and gave instructions to have Shepard seen to one of the less deadly areas of Omega. Monty fixed her with a wide grin.

"De'ja vu," she said, then laughed. Garrus didn't ask for an explanation, and neither woman offered one. She headed for another door, pulling up her omnitool as she went. "Hey! Everyone! I'm heading out, and I'm feeling generous with my sudden windfall- who wants takeout?"

A chorus of orders followed them to the door, with Monty shouting at them to just send her a message with what they wanted. She winked at Shepard.

"Sometimes feeding the boys is the best way to make them a girl's best friend, whether they realize it or not," Monty said, leading her out of the complex.

"Funny, always thought a good pounding did the same thing and with less stereotyping."

Monty gave her a wide grin, and the sudden gleam in her eye made Shepard re-evaluate her words. "Not- that kind of- I _meant_ \- Sparring. Or shooting. Or-"

Monty's laughter drowned out any other attempts to salvage her pride, and Shepard gave up and just followed the woman through Omega's underbelly.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

By some miracle, the remnants of Kenn's shop had been left relatively untouched by the time Shepard returned to it. Not like she had anywhere else to go, at the moment. The kiosk had been carted off, but of course it had been ruined by her cobbled-together overload during the Cerberus shoot-out, anyway. She wished luck to whoever had thought hauling the thing away worth their time. There was some signs of attempted tampering at the door's control panel, but nothing serious. The controls still accepted her entry codes, which was all she cared about.

The lights inside were busted, so she navigated by the light of her omnitool alone. Everything was pretty much where it had always been, almost as if nothing had happened. Shepard snorted into the dark room, and turned her attentions to the one thing that mattered; that bowl of damn whiskey.

It was still there. Of course. She stared at it, then sighed. She hadn't been tempted by any sort of mind-altering substance since...well, for a long time. Not like this.

Then again, she'd never before wondered if she was a clone of herself, either.

Shepard poured the whiskey back into the bottle, made sure the door was as secure as she could make it, grabbed a ration packet, and parked herself on the couch. She made herself choke down the 'food,' knowing she needed the calories no matter how her stomach roiled at the thought of consuming the block of tasteless nutrients. Especially given what she was intending for the contents of the bottle in her hand.

Over the next few hours, Shepard occupied herself with studying the outdated omnitool Kenn had left her. He'd done an admirable job of making it as efficient as it could be, but there were a few tricks she knew that he apparently didn't. Nothing said 'get creative' like being cut off, surrounded, low on ammo, and a serious hankering to make it home alive in time for the BBQ cook-off of the century. She'd picked up a few things.

By the time she was done, she'd managed to coax it to accept a few jerry-rigged military mods designed to utilize offensive programs -she might be able to _aim_ her overloads, next time- and cleaned up a few background junk programs to improve overall processing. Pleased with herself, she lifted the bottle to take a self-congratulatory drink, then frowned at it when she realized it was empty. Completely. Not a drop left. Still frowning, Shepard set the bottle down and stood. Easily, smoothly, she walked across the room. One hand went to her hip, the other tapping out a staccato against her thigh.

A whole damn bottle, and she wasn't even a little tipsy. She could feel the alcohol in her system, a slight warmth to her extremities and a burn at the back of her throat, but other than that… Nothing. She'd always been able to hold her own when drinking, but this was something else. The stuff had been one step from rotgut, and a whole litre of it should have put her in a very pleasant place by now. She recalled Nalah's utter befuddlement at Shepard's ability to shrug off the supposedly sizeable dose of tranquilizer, and acknowledged that the woman might not have been wrong to wonder. Shepard had simply decided their equipment must have been off when measuring the dose in her bloodstream, since none of the Alliance-approved mods she'd ever accepted could have handled the quantities Nalah implied.

Shepard raised one arm, used her other hand to push her sleeve up, and in the light of her omnitool she examined the network of shallow, still-healing splits in her skin. They didn't hurt, and didn't seem deep enough to compromise the integrity of her flesh or muscles. They did, however, glow. If she looked closely enough, she could see faint spiderwebs of microfilaments embedded beneath those cracks. Each of the fissures were lined with layers of pale, newer skin, so Shepard guessed that eventually her limbs would be whole again. They _had_ been shrinking each time she looked at them, if slower than she would have preferred.

Not for the first time, Shepard wondered what Cerberus had done to her. It was, however, the first time she'd wondered if what they'd done might end up being genuinely helpful. She'd survived a poisoning that had, according to Monty, killed all its other victims within moments, and she'd walked away with a headache. She'd shrugged off an overdose meant to kill her, and guzzled moonshine-masquerading-as-whiskey like it was water without getting so much as a buzz.

Could she even get drunk, anymore?

Now that was a horrifying thought.

Shepard went back to the couch, pulled down her sleeve as she shut off her omnitool, plunging the room into darkness. She tugged her knit cap off her head and ran her hands over her bare scalp. This changed things. Part of Shepard's whole ethos was knowing her own limits, down to the very last possible measurement. She had been pushed to her brink often enough, hard enough, she knew it like most people knew a lover. This new revelation, that apparently she was damn near immune to most forms of intoxication, moved that line, altered that brink. What else had changed? How far out had that line been moved?

She raised her head, stared into the darkness.

She needed to find out.

* * *

For the sake of common sense, she hadn't implemented her experiment until after plenty of time had passed for whatever was in her system to work its way out, just in case. If she had a credit for every one of her subordinates she'd bailed out of jail who'd told her 'but, Major, I didn't _feel_ drunk' she'd be richer than God. She could only imagine the quantities of irony that would have been involved had it turned out her belief in her soberness had been a product of severe drunkenness.

So, she'd waited. Just was well- immunity to alcohol or not, she'd had a rough fourteen hours and some shut eye was in order. As a result, she managed to wait a full day before doing something stupid. Well, stupid by most people's standards. In her world, it was a run of the mill Tuesday.

The underbelly of Afterlife was as seedy as she remembered. Grimy walls, grimier floor, dim lighting, not-all-there dancers, patrons attempting to forget where they were. She made her way to the bar, sidestepping the handful of persons meandering rather than sitting, and slid into the stool that put her back to an empty corner and afforded her the best view of the entrances. When the human bartender on duty jerked his head at her, she ordered the cheapest beer they had on tap, and waited.

She didn't have to wait long. Forvan showed up less than an hour after she had, sidling into her peripheral vision as she pretended to be engrossed in a news channel she had up on her omnitool. She signaled for a second beer, and paid only enough attention to the news feed to occasionally tab to a new article. The entirety of her focus was on the batarian bartender. He shooed his human coworker away, the latter seeming more than happy to vacate the premises. Words and gestures were exchanged, all with the air of much practice, though lacking not a bit of the heat for the repetitions. Forvan didn't even try to hide his disdain for humans. How had he gotten away with the poisonings so far? How many had there been?

There were a few ways to find out. She decided on the least bloody, for the time being, and programmed in a set of search parameters into the news feed, actually paying attention to it now. The hits that came back were staggering. She refined the parameters, and from then on it was a manual search. The number of mysterious deaths and murders by poisoning in the vicinity of the bar were too many to believed, were she anywhere else but Omega. Only intuition told her which ones were Forvan's work. Thankfully, she knew her intuition to be pretty damn good. They were all young, no family, known to be drinkers and thrill seekers, people whose deaths by overindulgence would not be too closely looked at. They were also mostly female, all found either in the bar by another patron, dead where they sat, or in alleys practically at the bar's doorstep. And, without exception, all were human. There were at least twelve of them in the past six months alone, that Shepard would stake her reputation on.

One of them had been pregnant.

"Son of a bitch," she murmured into her beer, shooting Forvan a glance. She'd made sure to order this second one before he took over the bar just to be safe, and was now glad of the extra layer of protection it offered; the batarian didn't bother asking her, in the bartender language of nods and eye contact, if she wanted anything. She wasn't sure she'd be able to keep her intent from her eyes, and then the game would be over before it had begun.

An hour or so later, and Shepard was beginning to wonder if the other half of her plan might have to wait for another day. Then, he showed.

The turian in red made his way to the bar, caught Forvan's attention to order, then spotted her. He straightened, grinned at her, and once he had his drink in hand he sauntered -she hadn't known turians could _saunter_ \- around the arched bar to slide onto the stool beside hers.

"Look who's here," he said, keeping his voice low and subvocals lower. "Thought I'd scared you off for good. Glad to see I was wrong." He let his hand brush her forearm when he set his drink down beside hers. Doubts in her ability to read turians aside, _that_ she understood just fine.

She dismissed her omnitool interface, picked up her beer, and twisted in her stool to face him. He was older, from what she could tell, his grey plates weathered and scarred here and there. His markings were spiderweb fine lines of white, symmetrical as they all were, and framed green eyes brighter than she usually saw in turians. He wasn't a bad looking sample of his species, at all. His red suit was quality, if not particularly expensive, and for a miracle he didn't reek like half the other patrons. All in all, she'd dealt with worse, in her line of work. Far worse.

"Beer isn't really doing it for me," she said, keeping her voice low and not _too_ suggestive.

His mandibles flared in a wide, comprehending grin. "What the lady desires, the lady gets," he said, and signalled Forvan. This was going to be easier than she'd hoped. The batarian came up to them, and took the turian's order -something with brandy- and then Shepard watched as Forvan poured the drink. She saw the whole process, him picking up the glass from a tray, grabbing a bottle, pouring in the spirits, the mixer, a few cubes of ice, then sliding it towards her.

She kept a frown off her face with a will- unless the toxin was in the ice, the brandy, or the mixer, she hadn't seen him add anything. She took a sip, eyeing the turian over the rim of the glass, let the drink roll across her tongue. He'd splurged on some of the better stuff. The guy had hopes, it seemed. She made an appreciative noise as she set the glass down, smiling at him.

The drink was definitely poisoned, she could tell after a few moments. A tingling unrelated the the booze spread across her tongue, mild and harmless in such a small quantity and with her apparently boosted immune system, but still there.

 _Something toxic only to humans,_ she guessed. _No risk of anyone ever catching him putting something in a drink; it's already in one of the ingredients._

So much for being easier than she'd hoped.

Or, maybe not.

While the turian in red -Ogrinn, he offered- talked about his business on Omega, prompted by her inquiry, Shepard pondered her options. For the first time in her career, she genuinely had no one to answer to. Oh, sure, there had been plenty of times as an N operative and especially as a Spectre where the higher ups hadn't _wanted_ to know how she got the job done, but she'd still known in the back of her mind when she should report to someone, what the rules were, the laws. Even if she ignored them, they were there.

Now...they weren't.

She didn't have to prove Forvan was poisoning people. She could deal with him, without even needing to file a report with the Council justifying why she'd opted to handle it herself rather than bring him to Council justice. She never _had_ to bring anyone in, but they still expected an explanation when she didn't, same with the Alliance brass that would have never admitted to knowing about some of the more shadowed ops she'd been on.

No Council.

No Alliance.

Just Shepard, and a murderer.

Ogrinn, at her prompting, continued to talk about his business exploits, something to do with things getting busier since his primary partner had been caught and 'taken out' by some 'barefaced turian vigilante, calls himself Archangel.' While he droned on, Shepard watched Forvan answer the summons of a pair of human men, the both of them clearly already drunk. Audible even to her, they congratulated themselves on a recent deal. Red sand was mentioned. She was less outraged than she might have been when she saw Forvan push two shots towards them, the same brandy she'd been served. Well, that told her where the poison was.

The two humans knocked the drinks back, then the batarian raised his own glass -of something else, obviously- and raised his voice in a toast.

"To the victims of Bekke!" He shouted, and around the bar various other patrons -mostly batarian- raised their own glasses in halfhearted enthusiasm. Shepard watched Forvan watch the two humans stumble out of the bar, watched the spread of sick satisfaction on his face.

"Does he always shout something about victims, when he serves humans?" Shepard asked abruptly, cutting off Ogrinn's tale of something unimportant.

Ogrinn scowled at the interruption, but hid it quickly when she looked at him. "Usually. Sometimes it's Torfan, sometimes Bekke, sometimes Zak'kon. Supposedly he had some brothers on Bekke, some pro-human group wiped out the whole colony barehanded and with ancient torture devices in liberal use, to hear him tell it."

"Hm," was all she said. It didn't make things better, but at least now she knew. She liked knowing. It helped her remember that almost no one, no matter how heinous the crime, was the evil villain in their own head. They always had a reason, a justification, that made them the unsung hero.

"You know," Ogrinn said, and the change in the pitch of his voice drew her attention back to him. "I have a ship, a nice ship. And a mate. But I only brought one with me." His hand was on her arm, sliding up. Some distant part of her made the comparison that, were he human, his hand would have been on her thigh. She gave him a thin smile, then jerked her head past him, at Forvan. He was standing only a few stools down from them, well within earshot.

"Did you know he's poisoning his human patrons?" She asked.

Ogrinn blinked at her, and his hand went still. Behind him, Forvan froze. The batarian looked at her, sneering.

"Ridiculous," the bartender snarled.

Shepard used two fingers to, without moving any other part of herself, shove her barely touched drink across the slick bar. It came to a spinning stop near him.

"Prove it," she said, and her patient grin was not a kind one.

"I don't have to put up with this. Get out of my bar!" The batarian was reaching for something beneath the counter.

Without preamble, Ogrinn pulled out a well cared for SMG from beneath his coat and laid it on the counter, not taking his hand from it. With his other hand, he lifted his glass and took a casual sip.

"Prove the lady wrong, Forvan," he said.

All around them, the bar had gone quiet. Nothing but the heavy music occupied the air; drawing a weapon in a bar frequented by murderers and thieves tended to garner undivided attention like nothing else. Subtly, Shepard made sure her own sidearm was loose in its holster and ready to be used. Forvan looked around, panic beginning to set into his eyes. He withdrew his hand from beneath the counter, leaving whatever weapon was hidden where it was.

"You can't do this," he hissed at Shepard.

"I'm not doing anything," she replied easily. "Not reporting you to Aria, not letting these fine customers conduct their own investigation, not taking you out back myself to see if you even remember the faces of all those you've poisoned. I'm just sitting here, inviting you to enjoy a drink with me, and waylay my fears in the process."

She gestured to the drink, and Ogrinn's adjusted his grip on his Shuriken, ungloved talons clacking lightly on the grip.

Forvan swallowed visibly, then lifted the glass.

"For Bekke," he said, quietly and to himself, and drank it all.

Whatever was in the brandy worked quicker on batarians than humans, apparently. As he began to choke and wheeze, Shepard watched dispassionately and thought he must have kept a separate bottle, unmarked, for his fellow batarians.

The bartender slumped to the ground behind the bar, gave a wet burble, then was still.

Ogrinn gave an somewhat human sounding snort, and re-holstered his weapon as everyone else in the bar went back to their business. To her, he said, "He got what he deserved."

"If only everyone did," she murmured. She waited for the feared exhilaration of having been responsible for so monumental a shift in the universe as a life snuffed out at her behest. When she'd begun to wonder where her limits were, if they'd moved or been altered, the first thing she'd worried about hadn't been how much alcohol it would take to get her drunk, or how many bullets she could take, or how quickly she'd bleed out.

She'd wondered about this.

About how she'd feel about taking a life.

Blissfully, confusingly, the thrill of power did not come. All she felt was mild satisfaction from having accomplished what she set out to do, and the faint regret that someone, anyone, felt driven to such extremes. She could live with that. She reached for her beer, chugged it down, and slid off the stool.

"Hey," said Ogrinn, his hand catching her arm as she passed. "What about what I said, about only bringing one thing to Omega?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I assume you meant you'd brought your mate with you. You should probably get back to her."

She shook her arm free of his grasp, and left the bar.

She was followed.

Not by Ogrinn, thankfully. She didn't feel bad about leading him on, but she also acknowledged he'd have a right to feel somewhat irked, cheating or no. Didn't mean she'd let him press the issue. No, it was a human that was following her. Male, dark skinned, and damn if he wasn't advertising his clean-cut military boy affiliation, grubby civvies or no, with every straight-backed step he took.

Shepard slowed her pace, wanting to see what he'd do. She doubted he'd be a very good tail, since he was already failing at blending in. She wasn't entirely surprised when instead of falling back to match her new speed, he kept coming. He didn't slow until he was walking beside her.

"Commander Shepard," he greeted, and whatever she'd been expecting, that hadn't been it. Yeah, she'd guessed he might be Cerberus, but coming out and saying her name? Gutsy, she'd give him that.

"You have me at a disadvantage," she said, glancing discreetly to see if anyone else had exhibited what she'd only felt, the sensation of having ice water dumped down her spine. No one seemed to have heard.

"I've got you at a few, actually," he said, almost sounding apologetic. "I know where you're staying, what you just did, that you have no friends, no resources, and that you're itching for answers."

"Got a crystal ball on you somewhere?" She asked. She kept her tone even, part of her wanting to ditch him and another part of her wanting to see how this played out. He wasn't shooting at her, hadn't tried to hide his presence, and was being downright polite, for a terrorist affiliate. She continued, "That's a cold reading if I ever heard one. Not hard to figure out where I'm staying, someone on Omega has always 'just done something,' people here rarely have friends or resources or they wouldn't likely _be_ on Omega, and everyone is always itching for answers to something. Try again."

He gave a low, warm chuckle. "You know, they warned me about you, but the reality is something else."

"Going to have to spell that one out for me," she told him.

Instead, he said, "Name's Jacob Taylor, ma'am. I'm just looking for a few minutes of your time, to explain things."

She stopped walking, faced him, hands going to her hips. Good looking males after a 'few minutes of her time' seemed to be the agenda of the day. He was calm, collected, with a square jaw, pronounced trapezius and broad shoulders that spoke of a strict work-out regime, brown eyes that never left her face for long while he kept an eye on their surroundings. His posture was relaxed, but ready. From what she could see of his skin, he bore his share of hard earned scars, and the sidearm at his hip was expertly maintained and modded. Enough so that she felt a spike of envy, in fact. In another life, in another set of circumstances, she'd have moved mountains to recruit him.

"Well, well," she said, and crossed her arms as she regarded him. "Seems your Ms. Lawson took me literally when I said I'd need more sweet talking, what with all the bullets that came first."

"That was...highly regrettable, ma'am," he said, wincing. "Wilson was one of the agents in charge of your...rehabilitation. We think he was the one who allowed you to wake too soon, and possibly facilitated your escape. We think he'd planned on being here when you arrived, and...well, we don't know what he planned afterwards. He was also the one who paid the agent who shot you with an overdose of the tranquilizer. He'd be one of the few people who'd know it would take at least that much to knock you out."

Shepard eyed the man, not blinking. He held her gaze, and she swore that if they hadn't been standing in the middle of one of the worst hives of scum and villainy known to the universe, he'd have fallen into parade rest at her scrutiny. Whatever he was now, he'd been Alliance, she'd stake every last credit she had left on it.

Was he lying? Was he...editing? Or did he believe what he was telling her? She could buy that he did, but that didn't much matter if he'd been lied to, first.

She let out a soft sigh, uncrossed her arms and rubbed at her forehead.

"That's a nice story, Mr. Taylor," she said. "But frankly, I call bullshit. That doesn't explain why I was in Cerberus custody in the first place, or why one of your own would go rogue." She held up a hand, forestalling his attempt to respond. "I'm sure you've got explanations for every angle, every loophole. It comes down to this; you're Cerberus. I'm Alliance, and a Council Spectre. Whatever...cloning or restructuring or rehabilitation that took place, that much remains true. From there, you can guess what my answer will be when you inevitably ask me to go with you. I'll not waste any more time, mine or yours."

When she turned to walk away, he didn't follow. At least, not in body. With his voice, however, he brought her to a halt.

"You were dead, Shepard. Meat and tubes when I first saw you, laid out on the table like a freezer burned varren roast." He came up behind her, just close enough that he could lower his voice. "Miranda brought you back. _Cerberus_ brought you back. Don't you at least owe us enough to hear us out?"

She flexed one hand, cracking the knuckles on each finger as she turned her head, slightly, formulating her response.

"Look up an Admiral Kahoku," she replied, her voice emulating a breeze across a frozen tundra. "Ask him what he thinks I should do. Better yet, ask his men. You can find them all in the Shanxi Alliance Cemetery."

This time, when she walked away, he didn't follow her with so much as a whisper.

By the time Shepard made her way back to Kenn's apartment, she knew she wouldn't be able to stay there. Whatever else Taylor had said that amounted to horseshit, his reminder that they knew where she was, was sobering. She shouldn't have even stayed there as long as she had, locked doors or no. She'd contemplated why they hadn't just hacked the locks -easily within their capabilities- knocked her out, and taken her away.

The answer was a chillingly simple one; they thought they didn't need to. Clearly, they wanted her cooperation. Whatever politics had gone down before, that was their current angle. In addition, they obviously thought they had time on their side. She was trapped on Omega and they knew her goal of getting off the station would force her to show herself eventually. Cerberus could be patient.

She could not.

It took her a few hours, but Shepard managed to dig deep enough into Kenn's old omnitool subroutines to find what she was looking for. Remnants of communications that someone had tried to delete. The messages themselves were long gone, of course, but the VI that had encoded them and sent them off had left traces, digital breadcrumbs she could follow. She wasn't able to hack all the way to the source, she had neither the skill nor the equipment, but she got far enough. She found and hacked a 'waiting room' of sorts in the source's communication que, and that's where she left her message.

 _Archangel-_

 _If you want to do some more damage to Cerberus, I could use your help._

 _-Red_

* * *

The Mass Effect wiki is my friend. More Garrus in the next chapter, and from then on out he'll be in pretty much all chapters.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

It took less than an hour for her to get a response, but it wasn't Archangel who knocked on Shepard's door. A turian she'd never seen before stood just outside when the doors cycled open, looking relaxed and curious in a well cut turian suit of bright green. It was edged with a pale lavender that matched his colony markings. She could see the faint outline of bullet-proof plates built into his clothing in key locations, and the tell-tale bulge of a sidearm beneath his tunic.

"Lantar Sidonis," he said, introducing himself before she'd had time to do more than quirk an eyebrow. "Word is you're looking to annoy some unwanted guests? Perhaps enough to make them leave?"

Shepard gifted Sidonis with a wry grin. "Something along those lines," she told him, and stepped aside, silently making room for him to enter.

He shook his head. "Not that I don't trust you implicitly, of course, but perhaps we could talk somewhere a little less likely to give us both a serious and incurable case of death? I hear this place is a bit of a fire-fight magnet."

She gave him an amused and knowing look as she reached down and to the side to where her rucksack had been packed as soon as she'd sent her message. She hadn't intended on coming back once she left.

"Lead the way," she told him.

They didn't talk while Sidonis led her to a small dive joint in one of the more sparsely populated districts. The vibe of the area was just as dangerous as everywhere else, but showed signs of being distinctly less hostile. More, 'leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.' She could get on board with that.

Inside, the place was better lit than Afterlife had been, but not by much. It smelled of grease and spilled beer and other, alien things she thought might be the turian and quarian equivalent. By the writing on the wall and the labels on the bottles behind the bar, she was in a primarily dextro establishment. The turian proprietor inside greeted them with a jerk of his head towards a door in the back of the main dining area. Shepard followed Sidonis, keeping an eye out even when all her senses told her everything was as above-the-line as could be expected. She'd been wrong before.

The room Sidonis led her into was just big enough to fit a game table, a set of chairs, and a couch that had seen better days pushed against the far wall.

And one turian vigilante, blue armor and visor and all, seated on the opposite side of the table.

"Red," Garrus greeted her.

"Archangel," she replied, letting a small smile show. She'd been hoping he'd be the one to meet her, but hadn't counted on it.

"I'll grab some beers," Sidonis said, and closed the door behind him when he left. Shepard had a suspicion those beers would be very slow in arriving. She let her sack fall to the floor, out of the way, and took a seat across from Garrus.

"Erash was impressed," Garrus told her. "He's never seen anyone get that far through his encryptions. One layer less, he says, and he'd have ignored your message as junk data."

"And one more further than I'd gone, and it would have flagged all his securities as an attack and been deleted," she replied. "One might think a hacker as good as he's got you convinced he is wouldn't leave that one vulnerable layer."

"It worked out for you,."

"Not arguing that," she said, leaning back in the chair and letting her head loll to the side, rolling her shoulders and stretching her neck. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt able to take a breath and let her guard down enough that she could close her eyes and not be...afraid. Here, with only the hum of the lights overhead and the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears, she could admit it. The last time she'd been this isolated for days on end, she'd had connections, known the lay of the land, and had had the invincibility of youth to bolster her bravado. Now? Now she had reality, and she wasn't too puffed up to admit to herself that sometimes reality scared her shitless.

"I heard about Forvan," Garrus said after a moment, breaking the silence. She cracked open one eye and grinned at him, a mirthless expression.

"News travels fast," she said, neutrally.

"No news to speak of," he corrected. "I've just got a few good eyes and ears."

Shepard thought back to the people she'd seen in his compound.

"The kid," she guessed, and the subtle shift of his mandibles told her she'd guessed right. "He's your mole, your streetrunner. Didn't get his name. Can't be more than, what, twelve? Thirteen? And you lectured me about putting people in danger." Her tone was light, almost casual, but there was an edge to it he picked up on.

"Weaver's sixteen, if you believe his word," Garrus said lightly, not taking the bait she had put out about lectures. "And if I don't use his talents, someone else will. Someone who wouldn't care that he stayed away from the dangerous jobs, got enough to eat, had a safe place to sleep."

"Someone," she said quietly, harshly. Not at him. "Who wouldn't care if he overdosed on stims during a job and died of a heart attack?"

She looked up from where she'd been examining the hatch marks scratched into the metal table, her eyes the only thing that moved when she caught his gaze with hers. He'd been following her fingers as they'd traced the scratches, the grooves that had been made by turian hands.

"Exactly," he said, just as quiet, just as harsh. Still holding her stare, unflinching.

 _What the hell has happened to you?_ She wondered in the privacy of her own mind.

Garrus broke their impromptu staring contest, looking sharply away. She let out a shallow breath, and looked away, herself.

"Ethics aside," she went on, forcing levity into her tone she didn't feel. "I meant what I said about Cerberus. If you're still interested."

"I'm listening," he prompted, and the tense moment was broken. Back to business.

Shepard leaned forward in her seat, abandoning her pose of faux relaxation to brace her elbows on the table. The metal pressed against her bare forearms, her pushed-up sleeves exposing her flesh to the chill. She ignored it.

"I was approached by another one of their agents earlier," she said. "I was...reminded that they aren't known for giving up easily. Right now they're under the impression they have time on their side because I have nowhere to go. I'll either eventually come to them out of curiosity or desperation, or when they run out of patience they can corner me whenever they like. They're not wrong."

Garrus was nodding. "We have some discretionary funds put aside for situations like this," he told her. "We've vetted a few pilots who come here regularly. I can get you passage off Omega to pretty much anywhere you need to go."

He fired up his omnitool, ostensibly to reach out to said pilots, but she reached across the table and put her hand over the interface, blocking its harsh light. He looked up at her, brow plate raised in inquiry. She withdrew her hand, and his eyes followed the limb when she retracted it. He frowned.

"While it's appreciated, that's not what I'm asking," she said. "Pretty sure that wouldn't help, anyway. If Cerberus couldn't bribe your pilots, they'd just hijack whatever transport I was on and people would get hurt."

He nodded, acknowledging the possibility, but his gaze was still fixed on her arm. She looked down, and saw that in the dim light of the room her cybernetics were glowing more noticeably than normal. She pushed her sleeves back down, and his attention returned to her face. When she was sure he'd put the odd sight of her mangled limb from his mind, she continued.

"Besides which, that wouldn't hurt them much, even if it worked. I'm not just looking to scurry away."

"You have a plan, then?"

Shepard grinned, the expression bordering on feral. "I always have a plan."

He barked an unexpected laugh, a vibration that rumbled deep in his chest, and said, "Funny. I used to know someone who claimed the same. Can't tell you how often those plans became scrambles for our lives."

"You obviously made it out all right," she said, somewhat coolly. She didn't _know_ he was referring to her. He'd had other commanding officers in his lifetime, after all.

She watched his grin widen as he reminisced, and she knew she was full of bullshit.

He was absolutely talking about her.

Well. About Commander Shepard, at any rate.

With that sobering reminder of her lack of confidence in her own identity, she shifted in her turian-style chair and laid out her plan.

"You've got the contacts to pull this off," she told him, when she'd finished outlining the key points. He was nodding. "I'm good, but if I tried to fake transport records I'd put up red flags all over the place. Between your Erash and a few favors I'm sure you're owed, you can convince Cerberus that I'm doing exactly what they half expect; trying to buy my own way off the station and take my chances. Except instead of finding whatever transport we make it look like I'm on, they find a crybaby."

"A what?" He blinked at her. "Sorry, human colloquialisms still trip me up now and again."

"Not as much as most turians I meet," she told him. "Remind me to tell you about Ogrinn. At any rate, a crybaby is-"

"You've run into Ogrinn?"

"Unfortunately," she nodded, grimacing. Garrus chuckled, a sound that went deeper than his earlier laughter. She'd forgotten it, somehow.

"Knew he'd bite off more than he could chew again, eventually. Did he feed you the 'have ship, have mate, only brought one' line?"

She laughed. A real laugh, head thrown back and all, and nodded. "Oh yeah. How'd you know?"

"It's how I met Monty, actually. He tried it on her."

Shepard couldn't have held back the laughter if she'd tried. She pictured Monteague at the bar, with Ogrinn sidling up, delivering his -apparently infamous- line, and her reaction, and… The image fed the laughter until her sides ached.

Garrus was laughing, too, if with somewhat more self control than she. He tapped his communicator, and into it he chuckled, "Hey, Lantar, go ahead and actually bring those beers. One levo."

When Shepard had wiped the moisture from her eyes and regained control of herself, Garrus was looking at her and he looked...well, more like himself. Some of the guardedness, the suspicion, the wariness had fallen away. The sight eased something inside her, even more than the laughter had. This was the Garrus she remembered. Closer to, anyway.

"I can guess what a crybaby is," he said. "A decoy? Something that looks like a ship on censors but isn't? Yeah, I think I see where you're going with this. When Lantar gets in here, we'll hash out the details."

"I'd like your thoughts. If you think this is a good idea." She spread your hands on the table. "This is your turf, after all."

He flared his mandibles in a wide, almost excited grin. "Force Cerberus off my station, get them to stop hunting you, and maybe take some -or all- of them out at the same time?" His voice lowered an octave, those sub harmonics doing things to his inflections no human voice could emulate.

"Yeah," he said. "Definitely."

Sidonis returned with three beers, one levo, and a tray bearing three plates, also one levo. Shepard nodded her thanks for the free meal, and the trio of them got down to business over their drinks and servings of something mysteriously meaty and fried that Shepard didn't question too closely. It was fresh -ish- and hadn't come out of a brown Alliance package, so as far as she was concerned it was fine cuisine.

"I like it," Sidonis said when the plan had been explained to him. He looked to Shepard and asked, mildly, "What did you have in mind for the, ah, 'crybaby?'"

"Any shuttle chassis should do," she said. "Or even any broken down hovercar wreck. We just need something that can hold the components to send out the right signals-"

"No, I meant," Sidonis gave a decidedly un-turian cough. "What do you want it to _do_? Once Cerberus finds it?"

She blinked at him, absorbing his meaning.

"What would our options be?" She asked, her expression going carefully blank. Her empty plate had been pushed away, and she spun the beer in her hand, fingers tracing the label that was laser etched into the bottle. Paper labels were a thing of eons past, unless you were on Earth and had a penchant for old fashioned things.

"We could rig it to send out an EM pulse to disable their ships, then broadcast a message on all Council-race frequencies. Alliance, too, I suppose. Let them pick up the trash." Sidonis downed the last of his own drink. "Of course, there's always the risk that they repair their ships before the Alliance or the Hierarchy or anyone else can show up, and they escape to come right back here with decidedly less friendly methods in mind. Or."

"Or?" She had a feeling she wasn't going to like this one. Judging by Garrus' frown, he didn't think he would either. But they were both listening.

"Or, we could rig the crybaby to explode, take them out and rid us of the problem." He shrugged. "Up to you two. I'm just the supply man."

Shepard drummed a finger on the table, thinking. That second option had significantly less risk for failure, and -more importantly- eliminated the possibility of even more trouble falling back on the people helping her. On a friend. The was also the fact that it also promised death of the trapped and fiery variety to persons who had utilized some of the most ruthless, inhumane -and there was some dark irony- methods she'd ever encountered in their pursuit of superiority.

On the other hand… Consigning people she'd never met, whose individual motives she was unaware of, to the sort of end she herself still had nightmares about… That wasn't her, not when there were other options. Hadn't been for a long time.

She took a deep breath, and raised her eyes to meet Garrus' expectant ones.

"I'd like to avoid that second option. However… This," she said slowly, and not without some pangs. "Is not my call. The risk would be to your people, Garrus, if the crybaby were to fail in any way. Cerberus is not an organization that easily forgets being made a fool of."

Garrus nodded, and she realized he'd been waiting for her to say so, or to not. Either way, he had come to that same conclusions she had at the same time she had, and he'd never had any intention of letting a stranger -to his awareness- take such a big risk with _his_ crew. He'd just wanted to see if she'd acknowledge that it wasn't her game. In his boots? She'd have felt the the same damn way. A bloom of pride swelled in her chest, of all things.

"I think it's best you stay with us, for the time being," Garrus told her. "People with more local resources, more time, and hell of a lot more motive than Cerberus haven't ever been able to find our stronghold. You'll be safe there."

The feeling of pride shifted into something else, something equally warm but infinitely more alien. Someone _else_ , telling _her_ she was going to be safe. How many times in her life, in her career, had she been the one delivering that message? She knew she'd have no problem keeping her head down while things were prepared, but the offer -the promise- of safety was… Well, it was nice. Really nice. She felt a subtle smile pull at one corner of her mouth, and she nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "That'd be appreciated. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," was all he said.

* * *

Sidonis begged off joining them on their trek back to the compound, saying something about a prior engagement. When Garrus pressed, clearly curious, the turian had ducked his head slightly in an expression of sheepishness.

"Personal," he said. Were he human, Shepard swore he would have been blushing.

Garrus' mandibles spread in a wide, predatory grin full of teeth and mirth.

"Just be back before curfew," he said, and his tone was so over the top fatherly it was clearly meant to be mocking. Sidonis scowled, shoved at Garrus' shoulder, and stalked off.

"And don't forget to use protection!" Garrus shouted after him. Sidonis' hand flew up, fingers curled into an unmistakable gesture, without him so much as breaking stride or looking back. Shepard choked back a laugh. The last time she'd seen Garrus goad anyone, the person on the receiving end of the jibes had been a seven-hundred pound krogan warlord stuffed into the back of the Mako. Wrex hadn't responded much better.

"Anything you need to grab before we head back?" Garrus asked her when their amusement faded.

She patted the strap of her rucksack over her shoulder. "Got what I need right here."

"Good. I've got a prior engagement of my own to get to," he told her. "Feel like playing good cop, bad cop?"

She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye as she fell into step beside him. She saw him unconsciously shorten his longer steps so that her shorter human legs could keep up easier.

"I'm not opposed," she said. "What's the situation?"

"Just a kid, thinks their ticket to the big life lies in joining a small merc gang."

"And you're going to scare them straight?"

Garrus gave her a wide, toothy grin. "That's the idea. Do you think I should be the good cop…" Here he straightened his gait, folding his hands behind his back, his expression going as serene and controlled as could be hoped for, the vision of the perfect civil warrior. "Or bad cop?" He resumed his more predatory walk, flaring his mandibles at her while lowering his brow plates until blue eyes gleamed menacingly from their shadowed depths. He added a little growl for effect.

Shepard patted his shoulder consolingly. "Good cop, definitely."

He gave a slight start, clearly having expected a different answer, then he let out an amused snort. "Ha."

"Honestly, it depends on the kid," Shepard went on. "What species?"

"Turian. I owe the aunt a favor."

Ah, that answered why he was choosing to help this specific moron.

"Then you take bad cop, big guy. I've yet to meet a turian who finds a human to be scary on sight," she said, wincing at the admission. That particular bit of truth had always grated her to no end. No matter how logical it was, the lack of instinctive wariness in a predatory species for a race of squishy pink tree-climbers had been something that had annoyed her from day one. Fear was a powerful tool in and of itself, and having it put firmly out of her reach by something as intractable as evolution had never sat well with her.

"Good answer," he said.

Anticipation built as she followed him through the sidestreets of Omega, watching him watch everything while keeping an eye out, herself. He'd always been highly observant, and that hadn't changed. He shifted directions at a moment's intuition, without looking like he was actively avoiding blooming confrontations, suspiciously empty alleys, or a gathering crowd of batarians with anti-human slogans. He kept an eye on her, too, she noted. Never let her get too far behind him, never letting her get ahead, either. She found herself falling into a sort of formation with him, an echo of how she had once been flanked. Usually by him, no less.

The comparison made her smile.

They arrived at a tenement building, a grey thing with narrow windows and evidence of old graffiti that had been painted over, time and time again, only to be tagged anew. This building's biggest tag was a jagged red glyph that was distinctly turian. She rapped a knuckle against it as they passed.

"This the symbol of the gang in question?" She asked. "I don't recognize it."

"You wouldn't," he said. "They only operate on Omega, for now, and haven't been around long. They'll probably never get as big as the Blue Suns or Blood Pack, since they recruit turians pretty damn exclusively. Call themselves the Talons."

"Creative," she drawled, and he shot her a grin.

She followed up up a narrow set of internal steps coated with she-didn't-want-to-know-what, greenish lights flickering weakly overhead. Plain doors lined the bare hall, some marked with numbers, some not. It reminded her unnervingly of some of the places she'd spent her youth escaping, and she didn't need to see Garrus loosen his sidearm in its holster to know doing the same herself was a good idea. Many doorways were full of turians casually filing their talons, watching a vid on their omnitool with deceptive dedication, or flat out glowering at them as they passed.

They came to a door that had no numbers, but a better lock than most. Garrus knocked on it with a single knuckle, and they waited. And waited.

He knocked again.

Then he sighed, and said, "If you don't let me in, Lyrix, I'll have to message your aunt, and then she'll come out here, all the way from Palaven, and I don't think you'll-"

The door flew open.

"Don't you dare," snarled the female youth. Even by turian standards, she was whipcord thin, with pale silver plates and brilliant blue markings that nearly matched Garrus' own. Pretty, Shepard thought, no matter what species was looking at her; biology appreciated symmetry and proportion, and the girl had both in spades. She shoved the door open wide enough for her to lean against the doorframe, arms crossed human-style, glaring at Garrus and ignoring Shepard.

"Give me the script she gave you, old man, then get out of my building."

Garrus didn't bother responding with words. Instead, he used a rebuttal far more eloquent. He simply stepped forward, used the fact she had hampered her own arms with her posture, and got one of his own hands in under her chin to grasp at one protruding mandible. He exerted just enough force that the girl yelped and went up on her toes to alleviate the pressure, clearly very aware that one wrong move, one hair more exertion on Garrus' part, and she'd dislocate her own jaw.

It was, Shepard realized, the turian equivalent of an adult grasping the ear of a child in a vicious pinch. She recalled her supposed role of 'good cop' just in time to keep from snickering, and following the two turians into the apartment, Lyrix hopping gingerly ahead of Garrus.

The room was about what Shepard expected. Dingy, bare, poorly lit and with most horizontal surfaces littered with remnants of take-out meals and bottles of cheap alcohol. A few small dishes of red powder sat next to empty pill containers. Turians didn't see the biotic-boost red sand was known for -unless they were one of those rare turian biotics- but it did other things for the avian species. She'd once seen an old turian fall from a rooftop, convinced he could fly, while on the stuff.

"Now," Garrus told the girl. There was a growl to his voice not unlike the one she'd heard him use when dealing with Agent Simmons. "I'm going to let you go and pretend you're not eyeing the tempest shoved under that pillow. You're going to sit, be still, and listen while I list the reasons why joining the Talons -or any merc group- is a very, very bad idea."

"Fuck you, you imperialist asshole-" The insults were cut off when Garrus raised his hand a fraction. Lyrix was forced higher on her toes, and she gave a shrill cry as her mandible was torqued painfully. He wasn't doing any damage, and wouldn't unless the girl herself did something stupid, but Shepard imagined the position hurt like a sonovabitch.

"Or we can stand," he amended. "Standing works for me. Now, reason number one…"

"You're hurting her," Shepard cut in, like clockwork. Not too friendly or sympathetic, simply stating an observation for the benefit of someone who might be too engrossed to notice. Garrus shot her a look, and she caught the glimmer of satisfied approval. She'd known she wouldn't have an issue picking up on his ques, they'd done this before after all. Except, he didn't know that.

Slowly, letting the girl know he was doing it grudgingly, Garrus released Lyrix's mandible. The turian girl stepped away hastily, though wisely not towards the ratty pillow failing to conceal the tempest that hid there. She rubbed at the side of her face, glaring.

"Don't know why Aunt bothered," she muttered. "Nothing you can say she hasn't. She's sorry, she still loves me, I'm worth more, b-"

Garrus crossed his arms, shifted his weight, and fixed the girl with a _look_. Lyrix went silent.

"Reason number one," he said, and his subvocals had sunk to a new registrar Shepard hadn't ever heard from him before. Were she anyone else, it would have sent something small and feral in the back of her brain scurrying for cover.

"You're trying to become a merc. I kill mercs." He stepped into Lyrix's space, until she was backed against the couch. "And I'm very good at it. The favor I'm doing your aunt? This meeting covers it. I don't owe her anything else after this discussion is over. Think about what that means for you the next time we run into each other."

Lyrix stared up at Garrus, visibly trying to work up the nerve to reply, or to shift away, to think of a snarky rebuttal, something fittingly badass in her still-narrow view of the universe. She was clearly coming up short.

"I think she's smart enough to only need reason number one," Shepard said, again in that observational tone. Casual, quiet, but with a note of caution. As if she was worried for the girl. Shepard didn't have the equipment to employ sub harmonics, but Garrus himself had once told her she had a way of putting _more_ into her voice that was uncommon in her species. She saw Lyrix pick up on the subtle inflections, and look at her for the first time. Shepard hadn't been expecting Lyrix to behold her with any particular emotion other than resentment, perhaps, of the presence of an authority figure. So the seething, unbridled hatred that came boiling out of the girl's grey eyes was enough to make Shepard blink in surprise.

Garrus stepped away, took a deep -staged- breath, and brought up his omnitool.

"I've bought you passage to Taetrus. Your aunt will meet you there. I suggest you don't miss your departure time, Lyrix. It's in an hour."

Lyrix shifted away from him, curling in on herself, a bitter scowl on her face.

"It's all her fault," the girl muttered. She glared up at Garrus, even as she moved towards the door. "You and your stupid human commander! _All her fault!_ "

The girl fled, bolting from the room at a run. Whether or not she was heading for the docks, Shepard could only guess, and hope.

"That went well," Shepard offered into the silence. Garrus snorted.

"Could have gone worse, certainly," he replied. He rolled his shoulder a bit, visibly attempting to shed some tension before he led them out of the room and away from the tenement building.

"Who was she blaming?" Shepard asked as they navigated the dim streets. She'd heard the bit about Garrus's 'commander,' and something bitter twisted in her gut. "When she ran off, she was saying it was all someone's fault."

Garrus exhaled and looked away. He had angled his gaze towards a pair of vorcha digging through a mound of trash- yet she couldn't help but think not having to look at anyone when he answered was part of why he'd turned from her.

"Her parents were on the Citadel when it was attacked, two years," he said. He hadn't hesitated, and his tone was measured. Solemn. "They didn't survive."

"And...you were there?" She ventured. She wouldn't outright lie. She refused. She was skirting up to that line, though, by leading him like this.

He grinned, a lopsided thing she'd learned to recognize as an expression that encompassed amusement. Or irony. Or both.

"You could say that."

"She wasn't blaming you, though," she pressed. She was determined to hear this.

"No. She was blaming Commander Shepard." Now his tone was tense, and he _did_ look away from her.

Shepard felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. Hearing her name from someone other than Cerberus for the first time since waking… She reacted. She didn't show it, didn't slow or stumble or choke, but she felt it. Her name. She inhaled slowly, deeply, as quietly as she could, then let it out.

It was just a name. Her reaction to hearing it didn't prove anything. It certainly wasn't empirical evidence against her potential to be no more than a very expensive clone that just _thought_ it was Commander Shepard. She had never heard of a way of transferring memories, but for all she knew her memories were false. All but the big ones, at any rate, the ones that were public knowledge. The slums of on earth, Elysium, Eden Prime... She remembered the Citadel. Sovereign. Garrus and Wrex beside her, dodging Saren's attacks, the smell of smoke-

"Will Nalah be at the compound?" She asked, cutting off her own thoughts.

Garrus, seemingly grateful for the abrupt change in topic, looked at her again and nodded. "Why?"

"She wanted to figure out why that dose of tranquilizer didn't kill me," she said. "I want to know, too."

* * *

 _I promised Garrus, I giveth Garrus. I had originally planned on him remaining more or less clueless until close to the end, but the further I get with this the more it's becoming glaringly obvious that just would not happen, so some rewriting will be in order._

 _Also, I was trying to keep my Shepard ambiguous for easier reading, but that also was not working. Even without me actually saying so, I feel her Earthborn background was coming through pretty strong, as well as her renegade tendencies. So for those of you that like to know a Shepard's given parameters, there you go. Default Jane, Earthborn, War Hero, Renegade._

 _Personal Note; I know it's popular to view the markings on a turian as 'clan markings' and the idea certainly makes for some nummy kinkmeme prompts, however, canon holds that they're actually_ colony _markings. Theoretically, any turian born on Palaven will have the same markings as Garrus. Whether or not mated pairs take their new spouse's markings, I have not found any evidence for either way, so that I leave that open. Hopefully this doesn't make too big of a difference to most of you, but either way, just a note._

 _Adore you all!_


	7. Chapter 7

**Grains of Sand**

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

When Shepard and Garrus returned to the compound, they were greeted by a scene of organized chaos. Amid shouts and the pounding of hurrying feet, the asari vanguard was snapping her left gauntlet into place with a snap and hiss of suit-seals settling into place, while behind her Ripper was sheathing a pair of curved blades at her hips. The woman really did seem fond of sharp things. To the side, the krogan was packing spare heat sinks into various suit compartments. The salarian was nearby, as well, his omnitool interface making his huge eyes seem to glow orange.

"Garrus," Monty greeted, grinning widely. "Got a situation." She sounded as if someone had told her Christmas was coming early.

"So I figured," Garrus replied. Shepard stayed back as he went to his team, holding his hand out for the datapad Monty was examining. She handed it over without complaint, crossing her arms over her chest. "Fill me in," he said.

"Erash caught a message with his super nerd spy network. There's something going down in thirty, involves that new club in Zeta."

"The one run by that human trafficker?" Garrus' voice was sharp.

"The same," the salarian standing by the asari answered, nodding. "Name's Denas. We'll want to avoid contact."

"Why, Mierin?" The asari asked, her expression coy. "Someone you know from your STG days?"

The salarian, Mierin, fixed her with a dark look, his only response a long blink. She snorted and moved away towards the ammo cache the krogan was still working at. How many compartments did he have?

"Ripper," Garrus called. "Stay here. Keep an eye on our new guest until Sidonis gets back, he'll fill you in. I want Butler to start working with them on a plan of theirs, whenever he shows up."

Ripper visibly restrained herself from protesting, then sat down, hard, on one of the couches. If turians could throw silent tantrums while looking murderous, this one was accomplishing it.

Garrus had, of course, already been decked out in full kit when meeting Shepard, so there was no need for him to get ready. As soon as the others were set - _"Krul, the last time you put extra clips there, it took you a week to regrow your quad and I am not listening to you moan about that again."_ \- Garrus took them out the back way, the same way he and Shepard had arrived.

He paused, briefly, to lean in low and speak to Shepard as he passed, his voice kept low. "Ignore Ripper's attitude. She gets antsy when she knows we're out having fun without her."

"Ignore the torture-happy, talon-sharpening expat glowering at me," Shepard replied sending the turian in question a sidelong glance. " _Riiight_."

Garrus grinned down at her, then made to move on before she raised a hand to forestall him. She didn't think about it, just lifted her hand in the gesture she'd made a million times, and he responded. He stopped. He didn't seem to note how it had been automatic, but she did.

"I could come with you, you know," she offered. She couldn't not offer, even knowing the answer.

He eyed her, for a moment. "You don't have a hardsuit."

"I'm pretty resilient," she said, and she couldn't quite keep the smirk out of her voice. "And I'm really good at ducking."

He shifted his stance, crossed his arms and regarded her with a calculating look. "I've never worked with you before."

"That's a lie, and you know it." The words were out before she could stop them. "We worked together just fine an hour ago."

He snorted. "One scared kid and a tried-and-true tactic." He glanced past her, at Ripper, then said in a lower voice, "Besides, I wouldn't be doing you any favors by taking you when I just told one of my own to behind." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I want you working with Butler and Sidonis on getting those components you need, in any case. The sooner Cerberus is off Omega, the sooner you're not trapped here."

He left. Shepard examined the sharp disappointment that welled up in her at the sight the asari, the salarian, the krogan -Krul- and Monty following him,. She did _not_ like it, even if she understood where he was coming from. It had been a long, long time since Commander Shepard had been told to stay put.

When the door cycled shut behind Garrus and his team, Shepard heard Ripper let out a harsh exhalation, and realized the woman had risen and walked closer, silent as anything. Shepard managed not to embarrass herself, and didn't jump.

"It took him a month before he considered taking me out with him," Ripper said, surprising Shepard. She'd expected the turian woman to maintain a stony silence. Shepard turned to face her, consciously keeping her arms at her sides in a non-defensive posture.

"You'll note, I'm still here," Shepard told her, going for diplomatic. Ripper gave her a look.

"He was considering it, though." Ripper sighed, and some of her homicidal resentment seemed to bleed out of her. "Come on, I've got things to do."

Shepard followed, contemplating her companion's words. He _had_ been considering it, she realized. Briefly and not hard, but he had. On the Normandy, she hadn't often had the luxury of testing out the people she picked up, going with her gut instead and just taking the untried ones out on relatively 'safe' missions before risking having them at her back on more risky ventures. Garrus, apparently, was taking advantage of having time on his side.

Ripper led her down below the compound, passing by the corridor that would have taken them to the interrogation room Shepard had seen the once. They went through another, larger, set of doors and emerged into a dimly lit warehouse. Judging by the layer of dust that covered most everything, the boxes and crates she was seeing had been there long before Garrus and his people moved in.

"Might as well make yourself useful," Ripper told her. "Garrus has wanted this warehouse organized since we got here. Says there's probably some valuable stuff in here somewhere." She gestured vaguely to an industrial mech that sat, powered down, off to the side. "I think that thing still works. Have fun."

And then, despite Garrus' words about 'keep an eye on' Shepard, Ripper turned and left.

Shepard turned and blinked at the mech.

"I suddenly have a new definition of the words 'busy work,'" she said, laughing softly, and headed for the mech. Even if it wasn't functioning, she was pretty sure she could fix it. In a surprisingly pleasant way, she spent the next few hours not looking over her shoulder for the first time since waking in on a Cerberus table.

* * *

Butler came and found her just as Shepard completed her first test circuit of the newly repaired mech. Its gait was clunky, too much so, but it would have to do- she couldn't fix that particular issue without some parts she didn't have. She spotted the human as she turned the mech around to park it back its docking bay to finish recharging, and gave him a brisk wave to let him know she'd seen him. She secured the mech, powered down its cells, and climbed down out the cockpit.

"Sidonis with you?" She asked, and Butler nodded. He was looking at her oddly. She wasn't one of those people who turned to inward self-doubt whenever a sideways glance came her way, but she did notice them. She ignored it for now. If he had a question, he'd either ask it or not. If he had a problem with her, she'd either find out about it or not. Worrying about it helped no one.

"Yeah, he's upstairs. He filled me in already."

"What do you think?" She grabbed a rag she'd found and used it to wipe her hands clean of grease and dirt, then tossed it aside to follow when Butler turned to lead the way back up to the ground level.

"I'm not overly fond of blowing up people who are stranded, but hey, it's Cerberus, so..." he gave a nonchalant little shrug that told her that, Cerberus or no, it bothered him.

It bothered her, as well, and had been on her mind while she'd been fixing the mech.

"As a last resort only," she told him. "I want to talk to Sidonis about rigging it so that it only blows if Cerberus manages to restart their drive core before authorities take them into custody."

Butler visibly relaxed, and palmed open the door leading into the main floor of the compound. "That sounds good," he said. "And if Sidonis can't do it, Meirin or Erash can."

"There's nothing I can't do," Sidonis said by way of greeting, clearly having heard Butler as they came into view. He had commandeered one of the tables near the kitchen, covering it with various components and machinery. A holographic display module was set up, and he was playing with what looked like a rudimentary version of the 'crybaby' she had described. Parts of it resembled the pieces laying on the table- he'd already collected much of what they needed in one short afternoon. Sidonis flashed them a grin along with his cocky words as they approached. Shepard gave him a rueful look in return, impressed despite herself, and the three of them got to work refining their little plan.

Hours later, Butler called for a break and made his way into the kitchen. Shepard checked the time and frowned.

"Did Garrus communicate with either of you on how long he anticipated his mission to last?" She asked the human and the turian. Not that predictions meant beans, but the lack of communication was bothering her. Not her mission, not her people, not her home ground- there was no reason for her to have received any sort of mission update, she knew that, and yet... She hated being in the dark.

Sidonis glanced at his omnitool's display, and gave a turian approximation of a shrug. "Not for a few hours now, but that's not unusual. He put out a full day cycle minimum before we go in guns blazing in any sort of rescue attempt." Shepard raised an eyebrow, and without further prompting the turian explained, "Any time any of us goes out, Garrus has us determine a timeframe for any potential...well, badness. No one's allowed to go in after anyone else before that timeframe elapses, unless we get information that supports early action."

Shepard nodded. It wasn't a concept she as unfamiliar with. It was, in fact, one of her own rules. She felt her lips twitch into a mirthless smirk.

Butler returned with a trio of meal packets, one dextro, in one hand and a trio of drinks in the other, also one dextro. They ate and drank while continuing to discuss their project, but it wasn't the food that kept Shepard from dedicating her entire attention to the topic at hand. She couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. She told herself it was because she was so unaccustomed to having her fingers off the pulse of a mission, that she should trust Sidonis and Butler's assessments. And yet...

"Have either of you see Ripper since you got back?" She asked suddenly, interrupting Butler as he reached out to poke at the bit of display he was talking about. Two sets of eyes blinked at her.

"Ripper's here?" Sidonis asked, sounding confused. He looked down at his omnitool.

"Garrus told her to stay behind, keep an eye on me." Shepard's tone was wry. No one liked being told to babysit, especially not people like Ripper. And people like Shepard didn't like to be babysat, either.

Sidonis cursed and stood abruptly. Shepard stood, also, her body language reacting to his; tense, worried, suddenly coiled and ready for action. Butler followed suit.

Sidonis caught Shepard's eye and said, "That communication I told you I got a few hours ago? It came from Ripper. She's not in the compound, hasn't been for hours. She went after Garrus."

"She'd only do that if she thought something was up," Butler said, but he sounded unsure.

"And she didn't tell us?" Sidonis snapped. "Even she's not that stupid. Something's up."

Shepard blinked at him. "Well, no shit." The next words out of her mouth grated. "What do we do now?" She knew what she'd do if she were in charge, but damnit she wasn't.

Sidonis gave her a predatory grin, aided none too little by the array of sharp teeth put on display. "We go get the moron, is what we do."

It was a work of beauty, how quickly Butler and Sidonis not only suited up their own selves but also scrounged up a spare human female set for Shepard, as well. It was older even than Monty's outdated Alliance hardsuit, and was one of the worst fits she'd ever endured. It was huge and awkward, an old heavy model made for someone taller and thicker. However, it put hard ionized ceramic over important things like lungs and heart and had a functional, if antiquated, shield generator. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and it wasn't quite bad enough to make going without the safer option. Besides, if it came to it, she really was good at ducking.

It occurred to her wonder, once, why Sidonis seemed ready and willing to put her in armor pull her alongside him and Butler, when Garrus hadn't. She had a few theories, most of them coming down to differences in leadership style and none of them really something she could analyze at the moment. She was too satisfied at not being left behind again to look at to closely.

The three of them made their way through the subterranean labyrinth that took them out and away from the compound. They emerged into the glaring lights of Omega's Zeta district to the sounds of heavy music, raucous laughter, and a crowd of brightly dressed people of all species dancing in the street.

A festival. Shepard hated festivals. Especially ones that took place at night. Every laughing couple could stab her as they whirled by, every drunken stumbling idiot might be hiding a sidearm under a dirty coat, every shadowed alley might hold a thieving crew, every high window a trigger-happy sniper. All of those could be said of anywhere, anytime, but dark and crowded street faires made such occurrence that much more likely to happen, that much more likely to succeed. Shepard felt more than saw Butler and Sidonis tense alongside her, knew they were thinking along the same lines as she was.

"Sidonis, take point," she said. He was the biggest, would be able to cut through the crowd the best. Sidonis glanced at her, probably at the unhesitating command in her tone, but he obeyed. She hadn't meant to give an order, but there it was, no taking it back now. Butler fell in line behind her, and the three of them speared their way through the crowd with relative ease. Sidonis' avian eyes scanned ahead of them, able to see further and better given his height advantage; most of the crowd was made up of humans and asari, two species almost universally a good head shorter than a turian of only average height. Sidonis was not average height.

Shepard checked her omnitool. While making their way from the compound, Sidonis had forwarded her a copy of their route to the club in question. Specifically, their route down to a side entrance used for deliveries. According to her readout, they weren't far.

They weren't the only armed group they saw. Shepard wasn't surprised; in a melee like this, it wasn't unfeasible for people of means to hire a bodyguard or two, or some muscle to defend their storefronts from looters and the damage of careless revelers.

As they neared their target building, a gaudy thing painted in several different clashing shades of grey and orange and pink and red, the three of them began to communicate with silent, subtle gestures in a mixture of human, turian, and universal hand signals. They slid free of the crowd and into the alleyway beside the club, and out of sight. Butler and Sidonis went to crouch on either side of the delivery entrance, while Shepard got to work at the locking mechanisms. A few short moments saw the old fashioned digital tumblers coaxed into place, and they were in.

The interior was dark. Shepard hit her helmet's night vision setting, but nothing happened. Broken. She scowled and slid the visor open- it wasn't a ballistic one anyway, so it offered virtually no protection and just hindered her vision in the already dim room. She blinked into the gloom, and in a moment she began to wonder if someone wasn't slowly raising the lights. Her night vision was good. It wasn't this good. Or at least, it never had been before.

 _'Improved sight in the dark'_ was added to her growing list of things she suspected Cerberus of having a hand in. ' _Supreme resistance to sedation'_ was still her favorite. _'Head of bald egg'_ was definitely her least.

Sidonis took point again, and she let him. If they were to come across Garrus or any of his people, they'd recognize Sidonis or Butler. Shepard? Shepard they might shoot on sight and ask questions later.

The room they navigated was a delivery bay of some sort. The door they'd come in through was a small side one, while across from it was a larger set of doors meant to allow bigger vehicles to back in and unload. There was one truck, parked and darkened, its rear hatch shut. There were boxes and crates strewn everywhere, it little to no discernable organization. A small, unimportant corner of Shepard's brain thought of the handful of OCD people she'd known in her life, and snickered silently.

The trio came to a stop in front of the parked delivery truck, where a half circle of disorganized crates provided cover from all directions. All three checked their various sensor programs on their omnitools, all three exchanged potent glances when none turned up anything but themselves. No life signs, no movement that their 'tools could pick up.

Sidonis raised a hand and signaled, and Shepard frowned as she watched his fingers convey a message. He wanted himself and Butler to continue on, and for Shepard to remain and guard their retreat, should they need one. She signaled her acknowledgement and crouched down where she could see all the access points.

She watched Sidonis and Butler slide free of her cover and edge towards another door at the far end of the room, and wondered if they were thinking the same thing she was; why, if Garrus and his team had supposedly been here handing out mayhem and bloodshed, was it so quiet? It made her uneasy. Shepard didn't do uneasy, not in the middle of an op. She saved that for afterwards, when the 'holy shit I can't believe I survived that' set in. During? Hesitation and nerves during got you killed.

Still.

Shepard pulled up her tracking programs again. If their sensors were being jammed, and jammed delicately enough that her omnitool wasn't even registering that it was being blocked, then maybe with some tweaking...

Behind her, a grating noise filled the heavy silence. She turned to see the rear hatch of the delivery truck slam open. She had enough time to see a net, its fibers sparking and glowing with energy, before she dived to the side and rolled-

Not quick enough. The net caught her, tripped her, and before she could get back up the energy in the net was surging through her suit and frying it's outdated circuits in an instant. Her shield generator popped and smoked, and then the electricity reached the servos in the joints and destroyed those, too. She could still move, the suit wasn't that heavy, but it was suddenly like trying to fight while underwater. Sitting up became a study in stubbornness. By the time she managed it, her attackers had emerged from the truck and had her surrounded, the unfriendly ends of a half dozen weapons aimed at her head.

"Tag, I'm it?" She said. The attacker in front of her, the one who'd thrown the net, snickered and flipped his rifle around in his grip to slam the butt if it against her exposed face. She didn't black out- contrary to what the holovids showed, most people didn't actually go unconscious from a single blow, not unless it was in the exact right place on the right person. She did, however, see nothing but stars long enough to be unable to put up a fight as she was bound, gagged, and had her omnitool stripped from her gauntlet. She watched, fighting back nausea, as a boot came down on the piece of tech and destroyed it utterly.

From the back of the truck, a seventh figure emerged and looked at Shepard with a mixture of pity and resignation. Shepard snarled wordlessly, braced herself, and spat at Miranda Lawson's feet, the wet globule splattering across pristine black boots. Pain erupted from Shepard's shattered nose, radiating outward and gripping her skull with barbed fingers. She forced herself to breath through the agony. Worth it.

"Get her in the vehicle," Lawson said, her tone and words clipped, and at once Shepard was hauled upright and into the truck. As she was dragged past Lawson, the woman said, "Now, Shepard. I believe there's a conversation we need to have."

* * *

Sorry for the hiatus! Life. Meh. You all know how it goes.

Little note... I've always wondered about the variations in armor proficiency in ME classes. No one goes knowingly into dangerous situations without wearing the best damn protection they can, so there has to be a reason why a biotic wouldn't wear the heaviest damn armor available. The easy explanation, and one I assume is sort of a given, is that the heavy suits hinder the movements seemingly so essential to a biotic's abilities. However, the soldier class doesn't seem to have issues moving (I know, game mechanics and programing and wire models determine that. Go with me).

So, is it a weight thing? Seems to be so, to me. It makes sense- the denser a substance (ie, the better it can protect), the heavier it is. The heavier the armor, the more likely it is the wearer would need something to make moving in those things easier, make sprinting across battlefields feasible. Plus, in several armor designs there are what appears to be artificial joints/servos at the knees. So, it has been my headcanon for awhile that hardsuits come equipped with some sort of hydraulic assistance. Then, it becomes a balancing act for the various classes; how much protection (weight) can be offset by mechanical/hydraulic assistance, and how much weight can you handle if they fail? Thus, why biotics might go with lighter armor that would require less, or no, aforementioned mechanical/hydraulic assistance; if such assistance were to fail, they wouldn't be trapped, helpless, in a person-shaped tomb. Whereas, a soldier class, with their assumed enhanced strength and muscle weaves, might be able to muscle through it and still shove a shotgun in someone's face.

Tada.

...yeah I think about this stuff way too much. Until next update! :-)


	8. Chapter 8

_**Grains of Sand**_

 **Amber Penglass**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

She didn't stay unconscious long, so that was a plus. On the negative, however, she was unable to disguise her newfound wakefulness from her captors, as the moment she became aware of the waking world pain assaulted her face with an abruptness that stole her breath and left her gasping, which in turn made the pain of her shattered nose all the worse…

This was not going to be a good day.

There were angry voices in the room with her, she realized as soon as she was able to arrest the cycle of _breathe, pain, breathe, ow_. The Lawson woman's voice, all cool tones and assured superiority, was being met with clipped, heated responses from another female voice, also lightly accented.

They were discussing Shepard, and seemed to know she was awake.

She made herself sit up and open swollen eyes to the slits that were the extent of their capability. Her suit was gone, of course, leaving her in the form-fitting underclothes she'd been wearing beneath. Every inch of her ached, and she could still taste electricity on her tongue. Her hands were bound in front of her, pulling her shoulders awkwardly taut. Her feet seemed to be free, which she thought odd until she realized where she was. A clinic of some sort. Probably still on Omega, then, judging by the level of dilapidation around her. A few pieces of machinery that clearly did not belong, as they were new-looking and fully functional, must have been brought in by her captors.

"Defacto head of our mission or not, Ms Lawson, I'll have to ask you to leave my medbay, such as it is," the new female voice was saying, and Shepard squinted at her. Younger than Shepard, but not by much. Brown bob, bright eyes, and a face that was utterly familiar in a maddening way.

Lawson acquiesced surprisingly quickly, with a nod and a short but poignant step back. She looked past the 'doctor' and her gaze met Shepard's.

"We will have that promised conversation as soon as the good Doctor Michel sees to your injuries," Lawson told her, then with a perfunctory nod to the Doctor, she turned and left.

Shepard breathed carefully through her mouth, and watched the petite woman turn from the door as it cycled shut. Michel pursed her lips at Shepard's upright state, but conveyed no commands to lay back down. In fact, she didn't say a word at all. Just strode past Shepard's bed to another set of doors to the rear of the small clinic, through which she disappeared long enough to fetch a tray of tools and implements, most of which Shepard recognized. A testament to how much of her life had been spent in the company of doctors wielding such tools, she thought.

"Keep still, or this will hurt even worse," the Doctor told her, her tone all business. "I'm afraid I cannot give you any worthwhile pain blockers while the sedative is still in your system."

Shepard grunted. "I know the drill, Doc. Not my first broken nose." Her words came out garbled, but understandable. Not her first kidnapping, either. She was beginning to develop a habit, it seemed.

Michel raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing. She raised one of the larger implements, and set to positioning it on Shepard's face. Straps and hooks over her ears and scalp kept it from moving, and then Michel hit a button.

Needles shot out from the contraption, biting deep. Shepard exhaled sharply through her mouth at the same time, and did not cry out. Cool liquid shot out of the needles, making her flesh puff and bulge even worse for a moment, before the injected medigel went to work repairing the broken cartilage and mending the fractured bone.

It was not pleasant.

But by the time Michel removed the contraption, Shepard's nose was nose shaped again, instead of a flattened red mess, and she could breathe, if gingerly.

"Most of the bruising should go down in an hour or so," Michel told her, reaching for another tool. She got to work on one of the larger burns on Shepard's body, right where the shield generator on her suit had fried. While she worked, Shepard eyed the little orange and black logo emblazoned on the doctor's collar. Something about it bothered her more than usual.

Then, the familiarity of Michel's face clicked, and Shepard blamed the lingering sedatives for her slowness.

"So, what's a Citadel doctor doing on Omega, working with a terrorist cell?" Shepard asked.

Doctor Chloe Michel pursed her lips. Shepard thought it was to keep from grinning.

"I could ask what an Alliance Commander is doing on Omega, hiding out with mercenaries," the woman replied. Shepard blinked then snorted her concession to the point. Michel went on, "Both, I think, are stories best saved for another time." She finished with the big burn and moved on to smaller ones. "Though if I might offer a word of advice? Listen to Lawson. She's...an interesting character, to be sure, and I starkly disagree with many of her methods, but I do think you'll want to hear what she has to say."

"Funny, she seems rather convinced of that herself," Shepard replied dryly. "Convinced enough to arrange this little meeting."

Michel finished her work, and stepped away from the bed, tray of implements in hand. She fixed Shepard with a look she'd seen countless times throughout her life, the look of a medical professional eyeing someone they'd just patched up and knew was going to undo their work in short order. Shepard gave the woman a wry grin, and Michel shook her head as she walked away.

"Just listen, Commander. That's all we ask."

"How undemanding of you," Shepard drawled, raising her bound hands poignantly and gesturing at her still swollen eyes at the same time.

After Michel had restored every piece of equipment to its precise and sterilized spot, she showed Shepard out of the clinic room. An armed guard stood just outside, his pseudo-military uniform similarly marred by the orange and black logo that seemed to be everywhere all of a sudden.

"Ma'am," the man said, nodding to Shepard with what might have been genuine respect.

Michel fixed Shepard with another look, expression somewhat pleading. "Please, Commander. Just listen. That's all you need to do."

Shepard said nothing, and kept her expression carefully blank as Michel sighed, then retreated back into her domain.

"This way, Ma'am," said the Cerberus grunt. Shepard followed him across an expanse of more dilapidation, noting the clean transport containers bearing more Cerberus black and orange that stuck out like sore thumbs. Mess tables filled most of the remaining space, with a sparingly small kitchen off to one side. A few more doors gave Shepard only a loose grasp of how big the complex might be.

The room she was led to was marginally cleaner than anywhere else Shepard had seen, but not by much. Silently, she applauded Cerberus for putting their people in what had to be some slum warehouse, rather than anywhere high end where they might have been noticed. In a world of poverty, visible resources attracted attention. It was, oddly enough, the absolute perfect setting for the woman who sat behind the desk, the orange glow of her terminal casting golden highlights against her dark hair; beauty against a backdrop of ruin. Her perfection shone all the brighter for it.

Lawson looked up as Shepard entered, and dismissed the armed guard with a nod.

"Commander Shepard," Lawson greeted as she stood and came around the desk. "Thank you for coming."

Shepard gifted the woman with an arched eyebrow. Again, she raised her bound wrists.

"You and Michel seem to be suffering from similar illusions regarding my willingness to be here," she said, keeping her tone conversational.

Not bothering to hide a small smile, Lawson rose from her chair and came around the desk. She moved with deliberate slowness, giving Shepard time to examine her movements and shift accordingly. It was the concession of a well-seasoned fighter to another. Shepard watched Lawson approach, watched the woman undo Shepard's restraints, then back away. She raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'Better?'

Shepard gave a grudging nod, and resisted the urge to rub her wrists reflexively. They'd actually been quite comfortable, as bindings went. She'd be lying if she said this whole abduction was going the way she'd expected. Cerberus was not typically known for...well, _niceness._ Not that kidnappings were nice, but as far as violent altercations went this one had progressed into something downright friendly. It was absolutely, frustratingly disarming.

Which, of course, was having the opposite effect on Shepard, ratcheting up her wariness and suspicion to unprecedented levels. She was comfortable amid violence and vulgarity and general shittiness. But this? This politeness, this civility? It was setting her teeth on edge.

"I don't suppose you'd take a seat if I offered?"

Arched eyebrow. Pointed look.

"I thought not," Lawson sighed. She herself retook her seat, folding her arms on top of the desk and leaning her weight on them as she regarded Shepard, not seeming to be bothered by looking up at her veritable captive.

"A few weeks ago, I was anticipating the approaching end of a three-year long project of unprecedented expense and ambition," Lawson began. "Are you familiar with Christian mythos?"

Shepard nodded slowly, having absolutely no idea where this was going and becoming more certain she didn't want to know.

"It was called Project Lazarus. Are you familiar with the name?"

It took Shepard a moment, but the story did eventually come to mind. A dead man, beloved of his sisters, returned to the living despite having been deceased and rotting for several days by the mortal hand of a benevolent God.

Ice trickled through Shepard's veins. She didn't need Lawson to continue, but the woman did, and Shepard eventually took the damn seat.

* * *

On the whole, the mission hadn't been the worst Garrus had ever been a part of. It wasn't even the worst he'd led.

But it sure damn felt like it. The sinking feeling gripping his innards put an edge to his mood unlike anything he'd felt in a long time. He stared hard at Erash, standing on the other side of the table in the room Garrus called the dormitory. No one actually slept there, but it had a nice view of the bridge that connected the compound to the rest of the district, and -more importantly- it was away from everyone else.

"Find her, Erash," Garrus said, lowering the datapad the batarian had just handed him. "I don't care how."

Erash paused, visibly contemplating his next words as he accepted the return of the datapad.

"Have you thought that maybe they want us to find her?" The batarian asked carefully. "None of us are keen on walking into another trap, boss. The trails I'm finding seem way too easy to follow."

"I have thought of that," Garrus replied, carefully modulating his tone. The man was just doing his job. "I've thought of a lot of things. Like how it would have been easy for them to just kill us. We walked right into their hands. And that room full of sleeping gas? Nalah says it was perfectly mixed to knock us all out for a few hours, no more and no less. That's not an easy feat, not with how many physiologies were in that room. That takes resources- I'm not a chemist, but even I know getting ahold of some of those chemicals couldn't have been easy. Or cheap. And the message Ripper received was damn convincing. Spirits, _I_ would have believed I sent it if I didn't know better. They could have had us all waltzing into separate parts of Omega, thinking we were meeting one of the team. Instead, they had us come take a nap while they made off with Kenn's friend."

Shortly after arriving at the club -a front for a red sand shipping facility they'd been eyeing for months- Garrus and his team had found themselves trapped in a room, all access points simultaneously sealed off. At the same time, the air had been filled with a cloud of micro projectiles, the kind used by C-sec when they needed to eradicate transparent barriers without harming hostages or bystanders. Damn near impossible to get ahold of outside police channels. The projectiles took out the visors on each and every one of the sealed helmets, reducing them to dust, and a heartbeat later the powerful knock out gas that had been pumped into the air put them all into a deep sleep. All of it had happened too quick for them to do anything but send off their variety of personal preset warning messages. Useless, they'd learned later, as none of their squad still at the compound -Ripper, Butler, Sidonis- had received a one. The room had been jammed, and jammed well enough to block even Erash. Then they'd been unconscious, and had remained so for hours.

With consciousness had come a storm of questions and confusion, and the furious hunt for answers. Garrus had managed to piece together most of what had happened, and the picture that he had painted was almost as confusing as the blank canvas it had replaced. The ' _why_ 's were what had Garrus gnashing his teeth. Why did they lure his team away only to have them take naps? Why take only Red? The rest of them had bounties more than worthwhile, even accounting for Cerberus's deep pockets.

Garrus didn't like unanswered ' _why_ 's. He had guesses, of course. He guessed that after knocking them out and seeing Red wasn't with them, they'd sent Ripper the message gambling she'd bring Red with her. He took some solace in that scenario- if they'd thought Ripper would have sullied her pride by bringing an unknown, a rookie as far as she was concerned, then they didn't know as much about their operation as Garrus might have feared.

Erash had been watching Garrus's face, his body language, and took a carefully measured step back. He waved the datapad and said, "I'll keep looking."

He passed Ripper as he left, who had just arrived to stand in the doorway. If Garrus had ever believed her capable of nervousness, he thought she might be showing some signs of it now. Her posture was rigid, and she met his stare with an intensity that reminded Garrus why other species considered them somewhat closer to their apex predator ancestors than turians themselves sometimes admitted.

"Now's not the time," he said, raising one talon. "Beat yourself up after we get Red back."

Now, Ripper did go rigid. He watched her sharpened talons flex and stretch.

"This isn't about apologies," Ripper bit out. "You said yourself you didn't blame me for believing that message, and I know I shouldn't have gone in alone, so that's that. This is about something I heard in the warehouse."

Garrus paused in the act of bringing up a message window on his omnitool, his half formed missive to one of his contacts forgotten as he took in Ripper's meaningful tone. He lowered his arm, and looked at her expectantly. Her talons continued to flex and spread, flex and spread.

When Ripper had answered the false alarm, she had arrived long after the room containing the rest of the squad had been sealed off. A tranq gun with a needle long enough to bite through the seals at the back of her knee had taken her down, when she'd been hardly more than a dozen feet into the loading dock of the warehouse. How had she'd heard anything while knocked out?

Seeing she had Garrus's attention, Ripper explained, "They must have gotten the dosage wrong. Or the mixture. Something. I'm not a doctor, Vakarian, you know that." She gave the turian approximation of a shrug and went on. "Point is, I was somewhat conscious. In and out, don't remember much more than those orange and white suits, and being dragged behind some crates. Some human curses. Think they were hoping Red would be with me." She snorted, and Garrus recalled his earlier thoughts with hollow validation.

Ripper looked down at her left hand, mandibles tilted down in a frown. "When Ripper and Sidonis showed up with her, they decided she'd stay behind in the loading dock. I couldn't see them. Just heard them. Wasn't even sure what I heard actually happened until all the dust settled, to be honest."

"Ripper," he said, and he tried to sound patient, really he did.

"I heard them when they caught her, Vakarian." Ripper must have heard his impatience despite his attempts, and now her words were rushed. "She was joking with them. They called her something else, too, but I didn't hear what. They knew her real name."

"And here I thought 'Red' was her name," Garrus drawled. "Next you'll tell me you were born Philamina instead of Ripper."

Ripper shot him a poisonous look, potent enough that Garrus half wondered if his joke of a guess hadn't been closer than he'd ever have thought. The opportunity to press the issue passed, and Garrus let it. Now wasn't the time.

Garrus rested his fists on the surface of the table that sat between them, leaning his weight on his knuckles. He hardly felt the pressure, his scales were so dense and thick from years of pounding things into various degrees of cooperation. Friendly sparring, heated matches with shipmates, perps that didn't want to come quietly. Geth. A particularly toothy krogan warlord. Saren. That last in his dreams rather than reality, but still. Thinking about driving his fist through the barefaced bastard's throat, instead of the pair of point-blank shots he'd delivered following a terse, ' _Make sure he's dead…'_

Well, it usually made him feel better.

Usually.

Thinking of _her_ voice, of the quips and jokes he'd so often recall hearing from her, Garrus couldn't help but look up at Ripper and say, "If Red threw a few puns at the Cerberus agents, that doesn't mean she went with them willingly. I know you haven't worked with many humans before this, but I have. They love their jokes. The more tense, more dangerous a situation is, the more mouthy they can be. Their military doesn't frown on smartassery in the face of opposition like ours does."

He may have only known the woman for a few days, but he could absolutely picture Red giving as much steady-gazed snark as there was breath in her lungs before… Well, before whatever had happened. There had only been a splatter of the dark blood Nalah had confirmed as Red's, but there were bloodless ways to kill. He'd never gotten clarification on whether or not Cerberus wanted Kenn's friend alive or not. It hadn't much mattered, it seemed. Stupid of him- _everything_ mattered, no matter how small.

Something about the clarity of the image of Red, on her knees yet unconquered, staring with unwavering intensity at her assailants, tugged at Garrus. It was because, he realized, his imagination had put one of Shepard's expressions on Red's face. One he'd known well- the one that said, even in the face of insane, absolutely _insane_ odds, she'd find a way. It fit the bald woman. Eerily so.

If he were honest, this wasn't the first time Kenn's 'shopgirl' had reminded him of his dead Commander. If he were even more honest, he'd admit to himself that he should be worried about whether or not those reminders were making him trust Red more, or or trust her less. He couldn't afford to hand over the keys to his operations just because the human woman cocked her hip and raised that strange little line of fur over her eye the same way.

"It's good you told me," Garrus told Ripper. "But don't jump to conclusions."

The explosion cut off whatever Ripper might have said in response.

Fire filled the air, a roar swallowed all other sounds, and the concussion was enough to send both turians staggering backwards and down on their knees. Garrus felt something bite into his left shoulder, just below the joint, and his arm went numb. He let loose a roar of his own, both from pain and the sudden, gripping knowledge that assaulted him.

Their compound, their haven, had been found.

Through the smoke and the glare of the fire that had engulfed the far wall of the second floor, Garrus found and caught Ripper's accusing gaze.

"Vakarian," she bit out, pulling herself to her feet and hobbling towards him. He had managed to roll behind a couch, and he could hear the others of his squad shouting. "The whole team is here. She's the only one not here-"

"Not the time, Ripper," Garrus snapped. He looked at his numb left arm, and saw a long dagger of shrapnel sticking out of his flesh, buried between two plates. Blue blood drenched the limb. His visor's readout supplied him with an oh so helpful diagram, and informed him that the shrapnel had severed the arm's primary nerve cord, but not the artery. Small miracles, he supposed.

Ripper continued, "Red is the only one who knows where we are and isn't-"

" _Philamina!_ " He snapped, and regardless of if it really was her real name or not, he heard Ripper's jaw snap shut. "Not. The. _Time._ "

Another explosion rocked the compound, and Garrus heard one of Krul's rocket launchers boom in the cavernous space that was the main floor. They had planned for this, of course. While he had hoped that this place would never be found, he hadn't been so foolish as to not prepare for it. Their krogan was already laying down heavy weapons fire at the main access point of their assailants, giving everyone else time to regroup and get the hell out. Not together- one moving target was still one target. They each had their own departure routes, and multiple ways to get to them. They'd escape individually into various parts of Omega, and regroup at one of the auxiliary safehouses after a few days of cooldown time. Erash's doomsday programs, having detected the invasion, would have already fried all the hardware.

"You know what to do," Garrus told Ripper.

"You're hurt-"

"I only need one arm to do what I need to do," he replied, and gave her a shove. "Go!"

With a wordless snarl of frustration, Ripper went, drawing her poisoned knives as she slunk across the smoke-filled room to the door.

Garrus removed his belt and used it to secure his useless arm to his side, tightening it with his teeth. Then he made his way to one of the weapons lockers along the wall, keeping his profile low. Multiple times in the past, he'd thought about making it a rule that they all remained armored and armed at all times, even while inside the compound. He'd been overruled, inasmuch as he could be overruled, and wished now he'd put his foot down. Armor would have stopped the shrapnel he didn't dare remove for fear of nicking the artery it was near, and he wouldn't have to struggle with getting his rifle free of the locker one armed.

Thankfully, he'd been trained for this, and not just by the Hierarchy military. One sunny week on Palaven when he'd been just shy of fifteen, his father had tied his arm behind his back and left it like that all day, every day. Even during shooting practice. The next week? Vakarian senior had tied the other arm.

Garrus made his way to the low wall that held the retractable window that overlooked the bridge. If the sounds of the explosions were any indication, the attackers had come across that way. Stupid, except that somehow they'd gotten across undetected. Cloaking generators? Ones good enough to slip past their security? Possible. Expensive, but possible.

Cautiously, Garrus removed his visor and raised it just over the edge of the wall. He held it there for a minute, letting the programs run, then lowered it and looked at the findings. Nothing. No heat signatures, no energy spikes from cloaks, no movement.

And yet.

The booms from Krul's rocket launcher had ceased. The crackle of fire persisted, but there were no new explosions. No gunfire. The shouts from his squad had stopped, hopefully because they'd all gotten away. His job was to take care of any strangling pursuers, to buy them time before finding his own escape. He heard no sounds from below, no radios from either his own or their attackers, no footsteps.

Garrus pulled up his omnitool interface, a feat given the awkward position of his arm, and saw with relief that their internal tracking system for the compound was still running. It showed no movement inside the walls. He frowned. Why? He would have sent in the explosive ordinance, then followed shortly behind with shock troops. But there was nothing, and their system was not an easy one to fool. It should have caught _something_.

Garrus raised his visor again, and this time when he lowered it, it showed him a blip.

Well, if they weren't inside, they were outside. Were they waiting? Did they believe the bridge the only way in or out? Plausible. He and Erash and Sidonis had gone to great lengths to make sure the underground entrance was not on any record, anywhere, and damn near impossible to find. It seemed too good to be true that they'd found the place, but remained oblivious to the existence back door.

He'd take out the blip, and then bail, he decided. There were too many unknown variables for him to use his current location to a stand and fight. Hopefully, the unexpected kill would scramble them long enough to give him an edge on getting the hell out.

Garrus raised the rifle, slipped the barrel over the edge of the wall, and raised himself to one knee. He pressed the stock to his shoulder, used the wall for balance, and sighted down the scope, looking where the blip had been and expecting to see a ripple, a shudder to the air, something.

There was nothing.

Frustration rose like acid at the back of his throat. Common sense warred with the heat of his temper; he _needed_ to take out at least one of them.

 _Doesn't need to be today,_ he reminded himself. _You don't even know who they are, yet._

No, but he had a few ideas.

The cold, unmistakable sensation of a gun being pressed to the back of his neck arrested any other thoughts of sense or temper Garrus might have had. In their place, Garrus recalled another lesson of Vakarian Senior's, gifted to him on another sunshine filled day of his youth.

' _Don't let them near the hill,'_ his father had said, gesturing down at a swarm of bots. Garrus had picked them off, one by one, none of them coming closer than a hundred yards to the foot of the hill. Then, when smugness had begun to set in, something had poked him in the back. He'd turned to see one of the bots, one that hadn't come from the direction his father had gestured, sitting placidly just behind him.

' _Never be so focused on something distant, that you miss what's right beside you, son.'_

Today was a day for lesson reminders, it seemed. Garrus slowly removed his hands from his rifle, and heard a rough female voice behind him chuckle.

"Knew you were smart," the voice said.

"So my mother told me," he replied. Too much time with humans, it seemed.

The voice laughed.

"I'd say, 'hands behind your back,' but I see that might be an issue."

"Only if you're wanting to take me alive," he replied casually. "Pretty sure my sharp and shiny friend here is only a millimeter or so away from severing an artery."

"Mmm, pity. Always wanted to try bondage on a turian. Guess that one will stay unchecked." The muzzle of the weapon pressed harder, and a blue arm reached around him to grab his rifle and chuck it away, far out of reach. There was a quick pat down for more weapons, and his sidearm, both his knives, and spare omnitool interface were all removed and made to disappear.

"Stand, and keep facing the window. I've got a few friends out there ready to give you a third eye if you try to turn before I say so."

"You're the boss," Garrus said, keeping his tone placid. He'd deal with the seething fury later.

The woman snorted. "Please don't try any of that C-Sec drivel. I've seen your training vids for this kind of thing, and if I have to actually live through a reenactment, I might vomit." There was a sound like an omnitool firing up, and he could see the faint orange glow from behind him. "Now," his captor said. "Tell me where your hairless little friend is."

"Well, I know asari aren't very familiar with male physiology as they have no males of their own, but in turians they actually tend to hide behind protective plates down in our groins until-"

A blow to the side of his head made him see sparks for a moment as pain rocketed up his mandible. He spat a mouthful of blue blood between his teeth, making it arch high and hit far away. He knew who she meant, of course, and he decided now was not the time to begin to seriously, _seriously_ wonder what the hell made so many people so violently urgent to get their hands on Red. The fact that a well-funded, well-armed, very capable infiltration combatant who had found the unfindable and broken into the unbreakable said _Council Spectre_ would wait for a day when his head wasn't ringing with the blow and blood loss.

He took his time straightening, but did not turn around.

"Let's try this again," the asari said, and she sounded endlessly patient. "Where is Commander Shepard?"

Garrus blinked.

"You must have been out of touch with the galaxy for a while," he replied slowly. The little pyjacks in his head were beginning to turn the wheel, though, running faster and faster. "Shepard died almost two years ago. Big battle with a giant artificial bio ship? Crushed half the Presidium? Famous vid of a human woman emerging from the rubble? Her flagship cut in half a few months later by 'aggressors of unknown origin?'"

The asari snorted. "Please. Let's save us both the insult of pretending. I don't much care about the whys or hows of a faked celebrity death, all I know is she's here, and I'm here to get her. Now," the gun was pressed painfully beneath the base of his fringe. "Where is Shepard?"

At the certainty in her voice, a fascinating sort of hopeful dread began to build. Garrus...thought about it. Red. Shepard. Red. Shepard.

His imaginings from earlier flared to the forefront of his mind, like a blinding light exploding where there had been darkness before. Red, with one of Shepard's well-known expressions on her face. How easy it had been to picture it. Like a cascade effect, the image in his mind spread to include Red with hair the color of the blood in her veins, and he recalled the moments when the woman had forgotten to slouch, forgotten to not look him in the eye.

' _I've never worked with you before.'_

' _That's a lie, and you know it.'_

Spirits…

' _Never be so focused on something distant, that you miss what's right beside you, son.'_

Garrus began to laugh.

* * *

FFdotNet Note: I am now on Ao3. I know I said that ages ago, and then I never ended up actually switching. It's all there now, promise! I actually posted this chapter there first!

So this took absolutely forever. Once I decided I wanted to move up Garrus' revelation, assisted or otherwise, it changed pretty much everything else, a lot more than I initially thought it would. Most of the delay was me reworking pretty much the entire rest of the story. The rest of the delay was me spending the past week going home to visit my dad before he went to quasi emergency surgery. So that was fun (he's fine, just fyi).

Brownies for anyone who guesses who the asari at the end is. They'll be cheap brownies, obviously, since I think it's pretty blatant, but we'll see. :-D Love all your faces!


	9. Chapter 9

Grains of Sand

Amber Penglass

* * *

Chapter Nine

It had been a long, long time since Shepard had felt true, unbridled bloodlust like the kind that welled up at the sight in front of her. Not since Torfan, not since her days on Earth.

"Well this is unexpected," said Miranda from beside her. She wore her white and black little combat suit that was suspiciously extra supportive, but the way she held her pistol dared anyone to make a prostitute joke.

Garrus' stronghold was decimated. Streaks of black from weapons fire scored nearly every surface, and rugged pockmarks speckled the walls, the furniture, even the floor. There were a pair of giant craters near the door. Krul's work, she'd guess. The tables had all be overturned for extra cover, and they were battered, too.

Then there was the blood. Red, downstairs, and blue upstairs. Ripper, or Garrus?

The sniper rifle near the trails and pools of blue gave Shepard her answer.

Shepard shifted her weight, feeling the rub of her new armor like the comforting chafe of warm hands on cold. It grounded her, helped her push back the red haze that clouded her vision. She took in a deep, silent breath of air, then let it out. She'd been reduced to breathing exercises to control herself. What next?

"Whoever was here, they put up a hell of a fight," said Jacob, from Shepard's other side. She shot him a sidelong glance as he knelt to examine a trail of blood that led from the window overlooking the bridge below. "Until they didn't. Looks like someone got em from behind. Took them alive, though."

"Then they had some self preservation instincts," Shepard said. Something in her tone made her two shiny new squadmates glance at her. Jacob had concern in his eyes, while Miranda cool calculation. That was fine. She didn't much trust them, yet, either.

She hadn't yet figured out what to make of Miranda's tale of acquiring a desiccated corpse, resurrecting it, telling it that it's name was Commander Jane Shepard, all for the purpose of fighting off some unknown Collector agenda. Her meeting with the Illusive Man via quantum entanglement communicators -now there was some serious cash- had left her with more questions, and the assurance that the only way to get the answers was to go along with them. With Cerberus.

At least she was pretty sure she wasn't a really, really good clone or AI. That was something.

She had forgotten what it felt like, the oppressive weight of expectation. She had not missed it. She thought it a hilarious way of measuring her life, that she realized she'd preferred her time as a penniless, homeless, nameless Omega waif. But those thoughts were taking her precariously near something like self pity, so she squashed it, ruthlessly, and turned her attentions back to the task at hand; finding and murdering the sonofabitch who'd shot up Garrus and his team.

"Shepard, I've found something," said Miranda. She'd walked away to examine a discarded omnitool, one of turian configuration. She scanned it with her own, and a moment later a holovid popped up. A rugged-faced asari, nearing her matron years, glowed orange.

"Shepard, if you're seeing this- Who am I kidding, of course you're seeing this. Your turian boyfriend's act is pretty good, but it's getting old. I've attached a set of coordinates to this vid. Meet me, and he goes free. I want you alive, Shepard, but I'll take your corpse -and his- if I have to. Don't keep me waiting." The holovid winked out.

"There are coordinates," Miranda confirmed. "I'll send a recon team to scout it out and-"

"No time for that," Shepard cut in. She shifted in her armor again. "Forward them to my omni. We go now."

* * *

Garrus' everything hurt. That's about as far as his assessment of his injuries went. His gauge of his surroundings wasn't much better. He was in the hold of a small cargo freighter, one out of a million models of the same that floated around the galaxy. They were cheap to manufacture, easily adaptable to a variety of purposes, and damn well impossible to tell apart from the outside. He had no idea how far they were from Omega, but he'd guess not far, probably still in the asteroid field. It was a good place for clandestine exchanges, and one of the reasons Omega had flourished in the first place once its mineral and ore resources had been tapped.

The asari, who certainly had the Spectre-grade chops to back up the little winged emblem on her hardsuit, had immobilized the shrapnel in his arm with a cannister of foam that hardened soon after hitting the air. It meant he was in far less danger of accidentally nicking an artery, but it also meant that the arm was still useless. The lack of adrenaline had let him begin to feel other injuries that had paled beside the trauma of his arm. Bruises and contusions from the initial blast, scratches from more shrapnel and glass across his neck and exposed cowl, many deep enough to ooze blue.

The worst was his left mandible, which hung loose against the tight, swollen flesh of his jaw. The blow from the asari's rifle had been truly spectacular, hard and vicious enough to drive him to his knees after he'd made one too many pointed attempts to glean information. He'd been left with what he could discern with his own two eyes, which had been just that yes, his people had gotten away. No, the asari was not alone. And yes, she really did plan on using him as bait, as evidenced by the holovid he saw her record and leave on his omnitool.

And, also yes, she believed Red was Shepard.

Did he believe it?

Spirits, he wanted to. He wanted to believe it with a ferocity that made the pains of his body pale in comparison. The more he thought about it, the more Red and Shepard were identical in his minds' eye, hair or no hair. So much so that he wondered how he could have ever missed it. It would be worth it, all of it, if it were true.

Which, of course, made him lean towards not believing it. In his chaotic life, things that were too good to be true usually were. It was a euphemism not unique to humans, but he liked their way of phrasing it. It was wishful thinking that was aligning their features in his memory, making connections between their way of speaking, their body language, that was yes, familiar and similar, but not identical. It couldn't be.

He'd seen the vids taken by the Normandy's and the life pods' external cameras. He had seen the footage of the flailing human body, so tiny, so frail against the massive backdrop of icy Alchera. Seen the arms reach up and back to the suit breach, the moment the arms had gone limp, fallen away, and-

Garrus halted his spiral down that particular dark well of memory. It would help no one, least of all him.

Point was, wishful thinking aside, he was one of the few people in the galaxy who had actually seen the irrefutable evidence of Shepard's death, short of a body. He, and certain members of the Normandy crew, the Councilors, and of course…

Garrus' thoughts trailed off.

Spectres had all access clearance.

His asari captor...she would have had access to the vids.

And she still believed Shepard alive, believed enough for all of this.

Garrus hung his head, shutting his eyes tight against the fresh onslaught of that most horrible, wonderful, painful of all emotions; hope.

* * *

Shepard wasn't entirely surprised when their trek back to Cerberus' makeshift base was halted by three figures emerging from the shadows to block their way. She'd expected them to keep an eye on the routes to and from the compound.

"Monty," Shepard greeted. "Ripper. Butler. Glad to see you all unharmed."

"Sorry I can't say the same," Ripper snapped in reply. Shepard didn't honor it with a response. She kept her gaze on Monty, who was examining her, her spanking new armor, her two companions.

"Red." Monty said, voice neutral. There was absolutely no trace of the woman who Shepard had teased about a Shakespearean name. "We weren't sure what happened to you. I see your Cerberus friends finally caught up to you. You look awful chummy, considering this morning you and Sidonis were planning to blow em up.."

Shepard shot Miranda and Jacob cold glances. Miranda had an eyebrow raised. "You could say that. We...had a talk. There's a truce, for now. Least until we get Garrus back."

"Yeah, about that," Butler said, holding out an arm to halt Ripper's snarling step forward. "We'd rather you sit this out. Until things get cleared up. Hope you understand. Garrus is one of ours."

He was one of mine first, Shepard wanted to say. She didn't, because that wouldn't help anyone and she was better than that. Usually.

"It makes more sense to team up," Jacob said. "We've got resources, you've got intel. Besides, the asari who took Garrus wants Shepard in exchange. You show up without us, you'll just get your guy killed."

The sound of her name in the air was like a bell. Where the attentions of their three person roadblock had been intent before, it was predatory now.

"Shepard." Monty echoed flatly. "As in, Shepard, coma, Commander? Garrus's old buddy? Dead buddy? Please."

While Monty scoffed, Shepard had brought up her omnitool and started up the holovid. It was a good thing they were in a rather narrow, secluded alleyway. While it played, she watched the faces of Garrus's teammates. Ripper's didn't change a scale, just kept glowering at Shepard directly. Butler looked thoughtful. Monty?

Monty laughed.

"Garrus let himself get taken by a crazy old asari cat lady. God, I am gonna give him so much shit. She actually thinks you're Shepard?" She laughed harder. Despite herself, Shepard felt her lips twitch in answering mirth. Dark mirth, perhaps, but mirth.

"All right, fine," Monty said. "But just you."

"Out of the question," Miranda snapped. To Shepard she said, "We're you best bet for getting Vakarian back, and you know it. You can't trust them."

"I know no such thing, and I trust them more than I trust you," Shepard replied. "Then again, at the moment I'd trust a hungry varren near a pyjak steak before I'd trust you." She reached out and gave the orange emblem on Miranda's chest a pointed tap, paired with an even more pointed look. Miranda's face took on a pinched expression, and Shepard knew she'd gotten her point across.

To Monty she said, "I've got the coordinates. You got a shuttle?"

Monty nodded. "Ready and waiting."

* * *

Only because he was waiting for it was Garrus able to tell when something bumped against the ship's hull. Could have been asteroid debris. Or it could be a shuttle docking.

A few moments later, the unmistakable sound of weapons fire and biotics filled the air, muffled by the bulkheads between him and whatever was going on. He would have settled in to wait, but the whole being tied to a chair thing meant he was already pretty settled. Blood loss and exhaustion had set in, but listening to his people fight to get to him had him as wide awake as a jolt to the heart.

He strained his ears for any hint of what was happening. He heard the unmistakeable whoop and hollar of Butler, and Monty's mocking laughter. The biotic blasts seemed to only be coming from one combatant, so that was the Spectre. There was more weapons fire, the rat-a-tat of a heavy assault rifle among the denser explosion of a shotgun, the higher pitched rapport of a pair of sub machine guns.

There was somehow organic sounding explosion- a biotic detonation, he'd guess. Those were exhausting, if his time with his own asari teammate and Alenko was anything to go by. The Spectre was getting desperate.

There were a handful more of the detonations, each followed by a frantic rush of gunfire and shouts.

Then, silence. He heard Monty give a wild cry of triumph, and something inside Garrus slumped with relief. He would have slumped physically, too, except- Well. Chair. Ropes. Etc. Garrus found himself chortling quietly. Shrapnel or no, the Spectre had gotten to tie up a turian afterall.

Faintly, he realized his elation was mingling with the effects of loosing too much blood, and he was becoming mildly delirious.

He heard hatches out in the corridor being cycled open, one after another. He managed to muster up enough energy to give a hoarse shout to guide them, and a moment later the pounding of heavy hardsuit boots heralded the door to his cabin cycling open. Filling the now open hatchway, four figures stood decked out head to toe in the heaviest armor and armaments he knew they could get their hands on. They'd come ready for a fight, and the scorch marks and blood smears said they'd gotten one. Monty in her blue suit, Butler in his black, Ripper in her red, and a fourth humanoid figure figure with her helmet visor shut. He must have been wrong about only hearing one biotic, since the only person this could be was Melenis.

Unless...Red? Had they found her? Possible, but unlikely that they'd let her come along on something this...well, he didn't want to be egotistical, but this important. Was it ego to consider his own life important?

They rushed in, clearing the room -his people weren't stupid- before coming to surround his chair and set themselves on the ropes.

"Good to see you in one piece, buddy," Butler said.

"Good to still be in one piece," Garrus replied. "Any idea who the asari was?"

"No idea," Monty said. "But can you believe that crazy biotic bitch thought we were hiding Shepard? Your old Commander?" Monty was hooting.

Garrus felt his innards seize, and he started coughing. His mandible flared with pain, and he tasted blood. "Easy there," Monty said. "We got a shuttle waiting."

"And here I thought you'd floated all the way from Omega," he replied, hissing as one binding on his foot came undone and sensation returned in a tingling rush. It was the fourth humanoid who was kneeling in front of him, freeing his legs. The Spectre had really tied him up good, wrapping several lengths of cord around his lower legs from ankle to knee.

At his attempt at a joke, the woman untying his legs barked a laugh.

He knew that laugh.

It wasn't Melenis.

"Red?" He asked, and despite his hours of telling himself hoping did not equal reality, he'd had to stop himself from using another name.

The figure hesitated, then looked up and raised the visor on her helmet.

He sucked in a breath.

No, the similarities had not been his wishful imagination under duress, after all.

It was Shepard's face. The helmet hid the bald pate, and over the past few days the furry lines above her eyes had begun to grow in. They were red. She gave him a wry half grin, and Spirits be damned, that was on point, too.

Not possible, he reminded himself.

Looking down into that green-eyed face, he said, "First thing that comes to mind when I say 'Mako.'"

Red's eyes took on a weary look as she smiled and said, "You bitching about having to redo the suspension for the sixth time in a week."

Garrus's breath halted in his lungs. Butler, Ripper, and Monty went absolutely silent.

"Wrex and Ashley."

"Longest lasting staring contest the Normandy ever saw." She didn't hesitate.

"My dad."

"Wouldn't like me, not because I'm human, but because I'm a Spectre corrupting his little boy."

He gave a short, painful bark of laughter. Her answer was so true it hurt, literally.

"Upper Ward Med Clinic."

"I still say you were an idiot for taking that shot. Also, the whole ship knew about the turian chocolates Dr. Michel sent you. Tali composed a lovely little teasing rhyme. It was pretty good, actually." Now she was smirking up at him. At some point she had finished untying his other leg. Butler and Monty had finished untying the rest of him. He lifted his good arm, and let his hand fall heavily on Shepard's shoulder.

"Well," he said. "You certainly took your time getting here."

Shepard snorted. "Sorry. No one gave me a roadmap for coming back from the dead."

"Yeah, about that-"

"Soon as Nalah checks you out, you'll know all I know. Promise."

He nodded. There was a numbness keeping...everything at bay. What that everything encompassed, he'd look at later. Right now, his head was swimming, his heart was pounding, and…

And Shepard was alive.

With his vision beginning to blur, he heard Monty exclaim, "Wait, you're- Shepard- You really are- What the fuck?"

Yeah, that about summed things up.

Garrus passed out.

* * *

See my Ao3 for notes. :-)


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

It was dark when he woke, which was good. It let Garrus examine the face of the human sitting across the room. Shepard's face. Turian night vision was better than human vision, though, and he took full advantage now. She was looking out the window, her unreadable expression shrouded in shadow, at the grey and damp Omega underground.

Just as he was letting his eyes take in the network of faintly orange-glowing lines spreading up the side of Shepard's neck, he saw her eyes meet his in the dark. Well, most turians had better night vision that most humans. He'd known she'd been given significant mods by the Alliance. Apparently, improved night sight had been among them.

"Glad to see you back among the living," Shepard said to him.

From his bed, Garrus gave an uncomfortable snort as he considered the obvious responses.

"Too easy," he said finally, waving a hand. "I'm gonna let that one go."

Shepard smirked, but there was a tightness around her eyes, a strain that had not been there the past week, that 'Red' had not displayed. Garrus recognized it nonetheless. Something about being known for who she was had added an invisible burden, one that a nondescript Omega waif had been able to put down. It was as if being known for who she really was had reinstalled that weight, that strain, and Garrus was startled to realize that her lack of it had been part of what had hindered his recognition of his old Commander.

For a painful moment, Garrus wished, for her sake, he had never figured it out. Had never put the pieces together. As glad -so sharply, sweetly glad- as he was to find that she was somehow alive, he thought he could willingly to back to not knowing if it meant she got a bit more time to be herself, whoever that was, without the mantle of the Commander draped heavily across her shoulders.

Then, she smiled.

He blinked at her, and the smile widened, deep crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. Some of that mantle fell away, and Garrus felt that sweet gladness inside him twist.

"Really glad to see you, big guy," she said across the dimness. There was a strange catch to her voice.

"Been here all week," he replied, voice gruff. "Right in front of you. _I_ might have been blind as a newborn pyjak, but you can't tell me _you_ didn't recognize _me_." Then, hesitatingly, he added, "Or...did you? Not recognize me, I mean. 'Garrus' isn't exactly the most unique turian name in the galaxy and-"

"I'd know you blinded and deafened," she cut in. A heartbeat of silence spread between them, then she cleared her throat and added, "Though I admit I'd be more upset about the deafened part."

Garrus couldn't help it. He raised one brow plate in imitation of that human gesture he'd picked up, and deliberately deepened his voice when he said, "Oh, really?"

She flashed him another smile, and let loose a short laugh. "Ass."

"Missed you too, Shepard," he said. He had meant it to come out more cheerfully, but her laughter cut off abruptly enough that he knew he'd failed.

Shepard rose up from her seat across the room and crossed to him. She sank down onto the bed beside him as he sat up with a grunt.

"What happened?" He asked her. She had pushed up her sleeves at some point, and the same spiderweb of glowing orange lines that were on her neck spread up and down her forearms. She held out those arms, examining them, frowning at them.

"Honestly, Garrus, I'm still not sure," she said with a sigh. He felt a stab of nostalgia- she'd used the same voice, the same tone of a sigh, as she once had during another quiet conversation in another dark room, aboard the Normandy, when he'd asked her, ' _how do you do it, Commander?_ '

"Start at the beginning," he prompted. It had always been his dad's advice to someone who seemed unable to begin a testimony. It was as good a piece of advice as any.

Shepard seemed to agree, since she nodded, took a deep breath, and started at the beginning.

In the dark, he listened as she told him of the _Normandy_ coming under attack, of even Joker's hands at the helm not being able to save them. His blind determination to save his ship, the feel of his humerus snapping in her grasp as she'd hauled him from the pilot's seat. The glare of the light, the vacuum of space, the surreal lack of sound as things exploded and the _Normandy_ died around them.

"The records say Joker left the Alliance," Shepard said. "I can guess why. He blamed himself, didn't he?

Garrus sighed and looked away. "We all did, in way. Except Wrex. He blamed Udina."

Shepard snorted, shook her head, then went on. Garrus resisted the urge to reach out to her when she began to speak of the darkness, the nothingness, the complete absence of anything at all- followed by sharp, abrupt, painful _something_. The harsh lights, the sight of her own raised, skinless arm, panicked voices, beeping. Then nothing again, but a different sort- the nothing of mere unconsciousness.

"I think knowing the difference is one of the worst parts," Shepard confessed. "People think they know oblivion, from the catnaps grabbed between firefights, from the deep sleep that comes after the first day at the mercy of a drill sergeant. That's not oblivion. It's not."

He didn't stop himself in time- he reached for her. He managed to translate the motion into something else at the last moment. He grasped his sheets instead, pushed them aside. Shepard watched him as he moved to stand, and he put extra effort into withholding his grunts. He hadn't been hurt that bad, but he was stiff, and still groggy from whatever Nala had given him.

"How did you get away from Cerberus?" He asked as he pushed himself to his feet. "Scratch that. How did Cerberus get ahold of your-" Shit, he'd been about to say 'body,' but the word caught in his throat. "-ah, how did they even get their hands on you in the first place?"

"I was a little on the wrong side of conscious for that part," Shepard said dryly. She didn't move or offer to help him as he made his way stiffly across the room, but she watched him carefully.

"Well, you came back from the _dead_ , Shepard, so I'm not writing off any super powers just yet," Garrus replied in an only partly sarcastic drawl. He reached his target; the plain cabinets in the far corner.

"Did I?"

The question was quiet. Almost too quiet to cross the room. Garrus paused in the act of pulling out out a bottle and a pair of glasses.

"If you're asking if I think you were actually, truly, dead and gone and came back from some afterlife that may or may not exist, my answer is, I don't give a fuck." He said the words with deceptive softness while staring at the bottle in his hand.

Garrus's earlier thoughts of weights and mantles and comparing 'Red' to 'Shepard resurfaced. He took a deep breath, and carried the bottle and glasses back to the bed. He wasn't sure if turian brandy would affect humans the same way, but he figured they'd find out together.

"I care more about whether or not you _want_ to be back," he said as he sat back down.

He heard her inhale, sharply, as he worked the cap off the bottle and poured.

"I'm not suic-"

"Never thought you were," he cut in. He wasn't going there and he'd be damned if he let Shepard. "I meant, does _Commander Shepard_ want to be back?"

Shepard gave him a sardonic grin, took a sip of the brandy, then said, "That choice has already been taken from me, Garrus. I am back. Nothing to be done now but to deal with it. I've heard enough from Miranda to know that whatever reason they had for bringing me back, it's not good. For anyone."

She leaned forward in a familiar pose, elbows on knees, drink dangling from her fingers, staring at an unmarked spot ahead of her. "From what they told me, there's nothing to stop me from contacting the Alliance, after all. They just wanted to talk to me first." She gave a low chuckle. "I wouldn't want to be the poor idiot that gets to deal with the 'back from KIA' paperwork."

Shepard took another sip, then said, "You know, I don't think I can get drunk anymore." She frowned at the glass, as if that fact were its fault. "Drank a whole bottle of rotgut the other day. Not even tipsy."

"Well that's just too horrible for words," Garrus said after a moment of stunned silence. He felt a keening of genuine grief well up in his throat, and swallowed it. He reached for her glass. "No reason to waste it on someone who can't appreciate it though."

Shepard smacked his hand away- hard. "It still tastes good," she told him, pulling her glass out of reach.

"Really?" He asked dubiously. He frowned at the bottle. "Must taste different to humans."

"Mhm. Someday I'll have to introduce you to Tennessee whiskey, see how it tastes to you," she told him.

They were silent for a moment, a comfortable quiet that had shifted from the fragility of earlier to something more stable. More familiar. How many nights had they spent in similar silence in a similarly dark cargo bay? More than he could recall individually, and not nearly enough at the same time.

"I can't just abandon my duties, Garrus," Shepard said, eventually. "Word will get around that I'm back."

"Word will get around that there's a capable badass on Omega who doesn't like mercs," Garrus replied, words clipped.

"And when someone realizes that this merc-hater looks an awful lot like the dead Commander Shepard?" She asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Not to burst your bubble, Shepard, but while you were gone? There were more than a few lookalikes who tried to claim they were you. Brain damaged and so of course unable to answer basic questions you'd know in your sleep, and conveniently unable to return to dangerous military service, but perfectly able to claim retirement benefits and news interviews."

Shepard blinked. "Really?"

"Well, when I say more than one, I mean just two, both put up to it by the same con man, but yes." Garrus reached over and topped off her glass.

"Well. Shit." She shipped, looking pensive. Then, she sighed, and shook her head. "As nice as it would be, Garrus, I couldn't hide forever. That's not me."

"So don't hide," Garrus said. "Let them know you're back. Just, spare that poor fool the 'back from KIA' mess. Talk to Anderson. Tell them to leave you dead. I happen to have a salarian downstairs who'd be happy to set you up with a foolproof new identity. Then...just… I don't know, go wherever you want."

Shepard swirled the blue liquid in her glass. Sipped it. Exhaled slowly through her nose. All while staring at that unmarked place both somewhere and nowhere that only she could see. Thinking. Calculating.

"At the very least," he pressed. "Take a spirits' damn vacation, Shepard. Be Red for a bit longer while you figure shit out."

Shepard shut her eyes for a brief moment. When she opened them, there was a wry twist to her lips. She raised her drink and finished it, then set it down on the floor.

"I'll think about it," she said, then rose up from the bed. "Thanks, big guy. You know I'm not much for spilling feelings and shit, but… I needed this."

"Anytime," he replied, trying not to let the defeat color his voice. What had he expected? If she'd been the kind of person to jump at the chance to ditch what she felt was her responsibility, she wouldn't have been the woman she was. The woman he'd been willing to follow across the galaxy.

At the door, she paused. It cycled open, and the light from the hall spilled into the room and illuminated her form in sharp detail. Light to her front, shadow to her back. He heard her sigh.

"Aw, hell," she said. She turned her face from the light and back to the darkness, and him. "Think you got room on your squad for another bruiser, Archangel?"

He spread his mandibles far as they would go. "Definitely."

* * *

Biiig apology for the long wait. So sorry! And don't worry, this isn't the end, despite the 10/10 thing. I plan on either doing a part two, or a sequel.

Check out the link below (minus the dash and spaces) to see what I've been working on that's pulled me away from fic writing. I plan on doing something special for my fandom followers when I publish, so sign up for the newsletter or follow me on facebook for updates.

cp-harrington . net


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